


Guide's Touch

by neichan



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Adult Content, Alternate Universe, Angst, BDSM, Domestic Discipline, Drama, First Time, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-26
Updated: 2006-07-09
Packaged: 2019-02-05 16:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 69,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12798348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neichan/pseuds/neichan
Summary: In a world where sentinels are known, Jim Ellison is still not getting his needs met.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

  
Author's notes: Snarl, growl, hiss, spit, hop, leap, slash...hmmm. Slash, yes I like the sound of that.....I hate menopause, it's like going through adolescence, backwards, and without being so cute....sigh. TMI, no doubt. Thank you for your tolerance...and if I am lucky...~whines pathetically~ your empathy....  


* * *

"No." Jim's voice was the hard-edged tone he used with only the worst criminals. This was the first time Simon Banks had that tone directed at him, along with the blazing regard of the Sentinel's pale blue gaze. Eyes that penetrated, pinned and found him wanting. But Simon wasn't about to back down this time. It was time to deal with this now, before things got worse. Before Jim or his Guide were hurt. Probably Jim, because Carolyn was damn good at taking care of herself. She just wouldn't admit she hadn't a clue how to take care of Jim.

 

"Yes, Jim. You need a Guide." Simon wanted to stand, to tower over the other man, but he forced himself to relax. To not turn this into a physical confrontation, not a contest of dominance that would lead to distraction. Sometimes being a Sentinel, running a department composed of Sentinels wasn't so easy. Take a "regular" police unit and times it by ten, or twenty...and there you have it. Simon wished he was still in the field, the field made some much more sense than being one of the bosses, but after losing his Guide, this was the only position left open to him as a Sentinel in the police department. At least in the field he'd felt like he was making a difference. could see it. He'd also been part of a team. Now he had taken that tiny but huge step that separated him from the rest of his detectives, he was their captain now.

 

Simon only just kept his arms from crossing over his massive chest. Jim, despite being smaller, was one hell of an opponent. He was skilled at intimidation, besides being naturally an alpha, a trait he projected constantly and with no effort at all. He'd been in the army's Special Forces, lead an infiltration and covert ops team, until his first Guide had been killed on a mission to Peru. He'd survived by adapting to one of the tribal shamans as an interim Guide. Then he'd been rescued. Eighteen months later. Almost immediately he left the Army and returned to his family's home, Cascade.

 

"I have a Guide." Jim said, letting Simon hear the warning in his tone. Questioning a Sentinel's Guide was not a healthy pastime. Jim was giving his boss a warning. Simon heard it loud and clear. But, he also knew he was in the right. Whatever else she was, Carolyn Plummer was not James Joseph Ellison's Guide. The tribal shaman, completely untrained in modern Guide techniques had been far better for the Sentinel than she was. The shaman had sent back a healthy Sentinel. Carolyn Plummer was systematically destroying one.

 

Simon couldn't ignore Jim's decline, his descent into hostility and his instinctive withdrawal, his search for healing somehow trying to repair the damage done to him by his "Guide", any longer. When Jim was the highest rated Sentinel in his department...that was different. But now, now it was another story all together. Now, Jim was displaying the unmistakable signs of stress Simon had expected to see months ago, when to Simon's horror, Jim had announced he was marrying Plummer, and that she was his Guide. Simon had cringed over that failure of Sentinel Survival Instinct.

 

Simon shook his head. "Not the right Guide. Carolyn isn't the right Guide for you." He didn't go so far as to tell Jim immediately that Carolyn Plummer was no ones Guide and never would be...she had no compassion, no empathy. She wasn't evil...unless you were a Sentinel. No Guide could function without the empathy she lacked, and if a Sentinel was denied them....that was bad. Very bad. She wasn't "built" to connect to a Sentinel.

 

Guides sadly were born, then trained. A very special complex of gifts talents and traits that had to be genetically expressed, not created. Once a person had the basic genetics, though, they could be well trained or poorly trained. But they'd always have their own instincts to fall back on, instincts that could not lead them far wrong when dealing with a Sentinel. They couldn't be manufactured at will. Wanting the prestige, the honor that was bestowed on a Guide didn't make one a Guide. Not with all the book learning in the world. She just didn't get it. But Jim couldn't see it...or didn't want to. Carolyn Plummer was brilliant, efficient, attractive. And deadly poison to any Sentinel who called her a Guide.

 

"Yes, she is. She is a cop. She understands my work, what kinds of things I have to do, be capable of. She can shoot. And she is my wife." Jim insisted, the tension in his voice making Simon flinch. He ached to hold the other man, to let him mourn. But whereas between normal healthy Sentinels such a thing was possible...it certainly wasn't possible now. Not in Jim's condition. Jim would interpret physical contact as a threat. Carolyn had even taken that away from him. Jim couldn't reach out to other Sentinels, his own brotherhood, his safety net. And that was only one more of the woman's crimes. Trying to make a Sentinel into a mundane human male. It was unnatural, and it was killing James Ellison. Simon bared his teeth, hiding the action with a hand rubbing his face. Well he wasn't about to let that happen. He felt bad enough that he'd let it go this far without intervening on his friend's behalf.

 

"She is a cop. A good one. I know." Simon answered gently, when he'd gotten his his involuntary snarl under control and he could let Ellison see his face. " And of course she is your wife, I was your best man remember? But she...you don't connect as Sentinel and Guide, Jim. She is a wife, a partner, and a good cop, I agree. But she isn't your Guide. And it is affecting your work, your senses." Carolyn was a good cop, Simon wasn't lying about that. She was smart and tenacious. She dug her heels in and never let up...until she solved the case. Simon itched to have another dozen officers or detectives with her determination in his squad. As a wife...he didn't want to think of her in those terms. But above all...she wasn't a Guide. And she didn't fit, not even peripherally in his Sentinel Division.

 

Jim growled at the large black man who he considered his best friend. And his superior at the Major Crimes, Sentinel Division. Simon looked back at his with concern and compassion in his deep brown eyes. Simon Banks. Jim shivered. Simon...his friend. Simon was telling him something he was trying hard, so hard not to hear...and once having heard it...he was trying to deny it. But he heard what Simon wanted him to, loud and clear. It was like taking a sword to the chest. Jim wanted to howl his pain. He lowered his head, took a step, two, backwards and fell into the chair that was behind him. He was going to be sick. He'd lost another Guide. His head began to whirl, colors streaking in an uncomfortable montage, worsening his nausea. He fought against giving in to it.

 

Simon had the waste basket in front of him almost before Jim was aware of the inevitable loss of his battle against the surging nausea. He clutched the rim, moaning with the spasms twisting in his gut. The visceral reaction to the horror of the situation he found himself in. He'd lost three Guides in the past. Ben Sarris in the helicopter crash in Peru. Incacha when he'd left the tribe to return to "civilization". And his first police mentor. Now he was losing a fourth, his wife, Carolyn. Heaving, he was violently ill, spewing the contents of his stomach, and if Simon was any judge, his intestines too, into the receptacle.

 

Simon had been a street cop and Sentinel. One of the best field operatives the Sentinel Division ever had. Until he lost his Guide. When Johnny Sanderson died, Simon Banks went through the worst year of his life. Coping with his Guide's loss, he'd seriously considered suicide, the idea of it, of taking his own miserable life, a constant companion whispering to him about the release from pain, from suffering. Only knowing how it would affect his son, Darryl kept him from doing it. From ending the bone deep pain, the pain that had been exponentially greater than the pain he'd felt losing his wife to divorce, his family, who he had loved.

 

Then trying to find another Guide who he could work with, trying to find someone who could bring him back to the glory of being a functioning Sentinel and back to the streets. He hadn't found him or her. And he was forced to retire from the field. The pain had lessened, gradually, until now it was merely an ache, a pain he carried with him every waking moment, lodged comfortably, immovably next to his heart, a tight block of unmelting ice. He believed he would die with it still there. The aching need for a Guide. The ever-present feeling every unbonded Sentinel lived with. Nature did not mean for Sentinels to be unattached. She made them suffer for it, every moment they were unbonded.

 

Simon rubbed his forehead, willing the tension away, before it turned into one of his famous migraines. No one could do headaches like a Sentinel. And the only thing that helped one of those kinds of headaches was a trip to the hospital and the care of a Sentinel Specialist trained in the terrors of Sentinel drug intolerances and reactions, or a matched Guide. Simon shuddered remembering the past attempts he'd made with the department's emergency Guide. He and she had not meshed. Not at all. Touching her had been hell on earth. Simon had been rushed by ambulance to Cascade General, in a full blown grand mal seizure that he'd come close to not surviving.

 

No. Janelle Brown and Simon Banks were not compatible. Though he was first to admit she was a lovely, kind young woman, a superb general Guide. The event had been unbelievably traumatic for the young Guide as well as for Simon. She had thought as he was loaded into the ambulance, that she had killed him. They'd made their peace, she and Simon, but they never touched, always keeping a safe distance between the two of them.

 

That, following the loss of his Guide and partner had come close to destroying him. The idea that perhaps he'd developed a resistance to any Guide, and an actual aversion to them...Simon had gone through a few days of the deepest depression in his life. Jim had joined the department at the tail end of the event. The end of the first year Simon tried to live without his Guide.

 

As was common among Sentinels watching over a single territory, the two men had been immediately drawn to each other. Sniffing around and evaluating one another, assessing competence. Simon couldn't think of any other man let alone Sentinel he'd rather have by his side, or on his team. They shared much of their time and the events of their lives with each other. At the same time Simon was forced out of the field as an unbonded Sentinel, Jim was just going into it. With an older Guide and mentor who he was fairly well matched to. That lasted less than two months, Jim's new Guide was killed, and he met Carolyn Plummer. Simon would do anything to have the ability to change that event.

 

Jim and Carolyn, the cool, smart, red haired beauty, hit it off right away. And Jim registered her as his Guide, to Simon's unfeigned shock. The two worked together, smoothly, but not as well as Jim had with his first Guide, and with none of the little, affectionate touches that Sentinels needed. Simon gave them some time to work out the kinks, hoping against hope they'd get it right, that he was wrong about her.

 

They did get better, but the problems didn't disappear. Carolyn was not, in Simon's most impartial assessment, a Guide. In his less impartial view she was a disaster for Ellison. She never developed the talent of backing away and letting her Sentinel run, she wanted to control him, to force him, not to Guide him. Ellison was in trouble from the first. Carolyn his erstwhile Guide failed to notice the seriousness of the escalating problem.

 

Jim wasn't admitting he noticed any problem at all. But Simon had seen his jaw tighten on those rare occasions Jim showed any emotion as his Guide put him on the spot time after time. She never once provided him with the safe haven on the job that every functional, bonded Sentinel required to stay in top form. Sentinels were a bizarre combination of amazing strength and shocking fragility. Once broken they were every bit as difficult to put back together as Humpty-Dumpty after his fall. Yet, a single sighting of a fully functional Sentinel on the hunt was enough to make it easy to understand why they were worth the incredible effort they took to maintain.

 

As he and Carolyn bonded, Jim grew more reserved, not less. A serious sign of trouble in any Sentinel. Simon was in agony watching the disaster of the unequal partnership unfold in slow motion.

 

He waited until Jim was through vomiting, thrusting away the waste container as they both automatically dialed down the sense of smell to cope with the sour-acid stench of the puke. Jim had trouble dialing down, Simon saw the tightening around his eyes, the flaring of his nostrils. He carried the waste can to the door and set it outside, closing the door firmly on the worried and curious stares of the other men and women in the bullpen. All of them Sentinels or Guides. None of them Carolyn Plummer. Once more she was absent, not there when she was needed. Not that Simon regretted that in this moment. The last thing he wanted was to see her face right now, to hear her complain again about her husband, how he was slowing them down.

 

When Simon had asked Jim to come into the office, she hadn't even tried to get in with her Sentinel. She'd snorted impatiently and strode off, projecting very obvious anger that Jim was forcing her to slow down once again. Of course Simon wasn't sorry to have her leave, taking with her the reek of her favorite perfume. Perfume that was one of the most grievous sins Simon saw in her uneducated or deliberate, he hadn't decided which, assault on Jim and any other Sentinel in her vicinity. Strong smells made it hard for a Sentinel to do his work or to simply relax. True Guides never wore cologne or perfume.

 

"Jim, listen to me. You and Carolyn are good. Major Crimes good. Partners good. But not Sentinel Division good. If you won't....take on a new Guide, I am more than willing to transfer the two of you to the general Major Crimes group. They'll be lucky to have you. Though I have to tell you I think it would be a mistake." Simon took in a big breath. Fighting against the vision of his friend trapped with that woman as his "guide" away from other Sentinels, people who cared about him and wanted to protect him. People who understood him. "But I can't keep you in Sentinel Division as Sentinel and Guide. Rafe and H are ranking ten points higher than you and Carolyn. Ten points Jim. That's huge."

 

Differences between Sentinel and Guide pairs were commonly measured in tenths or hundredths of a point. Simon had read the unclassified ratings for Jim and Ben Sarris. They'd been off the chart. A true pairing. A dream. Once in a lifetime kind of pairing. And now Jim was reduced to this. Struggling to survive a brutish, unfeeling, insensitive Guide who intentionally or unintentionally tortured him with her unwillingness to adapt or to learn about the way a Sentinel had to be treated. Had to be Guided.

 

Jim seemed as shocked as Simon had been when he saw the stats. A flash of pure pain mingled with embarrassment graced his classically handsome face before disappearing so fast Simon wasn't sure he'd really seen it. The scent of distress didn't fade however. Staying sharp in Simon's awareness despite being dialed down. Simon longed to chuff the smell out of his nostrils. He couldn't do it, though. It was Jim's pain. And he wouldn't slough it off. It mattered to him that Jim was hurting. And how badly. Ghod, if he could he'd be over there and holding the other man. But Jim wasn't able to tolerate that with his system so screwed up. It might force him into a zone.

 

"Ten?" Jim asked at last. Simon nodded, knowing the other Sentinel would feel the motion on the air currents even looking out the window as he was. Jim rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. Not taking care of his grooming. You didn't find Sentinels with beards. Most shaved twice a day. The irritation of facial hair on the hypersensitive skin of the face....Simon inadvertently rubbed his own smooth chin. Shaved was much better. And you didn't find Sentinels skimping on a cheap razor or electric shaver, either. Simon shuddered again.

 

"Ten. Last month it was five." He kept his tone quiet, calm. "The month before was even-steven, and before that, you were ahead of them. It's getting worse, the discrepancy is accelerating." At an unheard of rate for a healthy Sentinel.

 

"She won't...give in. She is too independent." Jim said, still looking out over the city-scape as it fanned out from the view from Simon's office. Simon felt his heart clench. The admission of fault for a Guide was wrenching for any Sentinel. And the admission that his Guide didn't surrender...Simon blanched at that. Every hair on his body stood on end at the horror of being in Jim's situation. He couldn't let it go on. He couldn't let his best friend endure more.

 

"I know." Simon Banks said to his friend, his hands tightened into fists on his thighs. "It takes a special kind to be a Guide in this kind of job, Jim. It's not Carolyn's fault. It's no one's fault. She just doesn't have the personality for it. She is still a damn good cop." He almost moaned in pain as Jim curled in on himself, fighting not to angrily defend the woman he loved and called his Guide.

 

Simon, not for the first time wondered who's idea it had been for Plummer to receive the coveted Guide designation. He was willing to bet it hadn't been Jim's. Though the Sentinel would defend her to the last and would not likely even admit it if it had been pressure on her part. He'd take the full blame. Simon knew it in his bones.

 

"And my wife." Jim turned those aching, hollow blue eyes on his friend. "Can you picture her letting me take another Guide? Moving her into our home?" He shook his head. "She'll leave me." He groaned lowering his head again a shiver passing over his hunched back in a wave.

 

Simon bit his tongue at that. He knew it was true. He didn't need to say anything. He also wanted to howl out that it would be the best thing that had happened to Jim since Sarris had died. If Carolyn was Jim's true Guide she wouldn't leave him short of death.

 

But Simon had no illusions when it came to the ambitious Detective Plummer. Jim already was aware of her shortcomings. She would be gone in a flash if she thought it was to her benefit, or if she thought she was not getting the respect she deserved, losing a chance at promotion. Far be it from her, however, to give Jim the same consideration she demanded. She just didn't see what was happening to her husband, or didn't care. And Jim was just too loyal to bring it up. So Simon would remain silent as well.

 

"Jim..." Simon stopped himself in the act of rising to his feet and striding to the other Sentinel's side.

 

"No. That's all right. We both know there isn't really anything else to say. I'll see you tomorrow. I've got some thinking to do." Ellison fought his way upright, swaying on his feet in a manner that alarmed Simon to no end. When Jim pitched forward, eyes rolling up in his head, Simon didn't hesitate, grabbing him, keeping him from hitting the floor and swung him up in his arms.

 

Simon burst out of his office, the unconscious Ellison in his arms. Rafe and H were at his side in an instant, having been on the way to the door the moment they'd sensed Jim falling. A team the tow of them, Rafe the Guide every bit as aware as his Sentinel of the event. His connection to H was flawless. The same kind of connection Simon longed for himself and for Jim.

 

"What happened this time?" Rafe asked, semi-rhetorically, his hand on H's back and the big man vibrated his anxiety. Unspoken the answer hung between the three men as Simon swung down the hall towards the Sentinel Emergency Center. Carolyn. She was what happened. She always was when it came to Ellison. Rafe pursed his lips. He was even less tolerant than Simon of the other, deficient Guide.

 

Simon burst into the Emergency Center startling Janelle, but not the young man in the room who was already on his feet opening the door to the shielded room of the main waiting area and waving Simon inside. Simon was aware of Janelle staring after them.

 

"What happened?" The man asked, his hands already busy while he asked as Simon set Jim down. Rafe and H took up guard duty on either side of the door outside, the grim looks on each man's face reassuring Simon that not even the impressive, full-blown rage of Carolyn Plummer would earn her access to Jim at this moment. If she bothered to track him down at all.

 

"He has a bad bond." Simon said with brutal frankness. A smart Sentinel did not lie to a Guide. Especially not in an emergency. The young man looked up at Simon for an instant, as if unable to credit what he'd heard. Then he nodded.

 

"That explains a lot." He said. "I've read his file. This is Ellison, isn't it?" Simon wasn't the only one who'd noticed how poorly matched Plummer and Ellison were.

 

Simon wasn't surprised this Guide had heard of Jim. Ellison had been required reading for new Guide's in training for years. Ever since he and Sarris had broken every rating's record ever recorded for a Sentinel and Guide pair.

 

"Yes, this is Jim Ellison." He replied unnecessarily. "And you are...?" He didn't know this man. He looked over the long, mahogany, curly hair drawn back in a snug pony tail. Very long. Not really the thing in a police employee, not even a civilian Guide. Even female Guides kept their hair short. His blue eyes were large, kind, intelligent. And his clothing was colorful, wild. He smelled faintly of herbs..a pleasant smell, not at all off putting. Simon felt both curiosity and a sort of aversion looking at the young man as he worked. He didn't look like a cop at all. Simon dredged up a term from his own youth. The young man looked like a hippie.

 

"Oh. I'm Blair. Blair Sandburg." He held out a hand. Simon eyed the extended limb warily. After his experience, his almost allergic response to Janelle, he didn't touch most Guides. Still it would be rude to ignore the hand. Gingerly he took Blair's offered hand. Pleasantly surprised when he felt....good. His shoulders lost their tightness. And he smiled, despite his worry over Jim, letting out the breath he'd been holding.

 

"Simon Banks." Simon said, freeing Blair's hand, though he wanted to hold on to it. Wanted to snuggle his whole damn body up to the small man. He let go and Blair went right back to examining Ellison.

 

"Can you help him? Or should we call rescue?" Simon questioned.

 

"Rescue? Nope. Won't need them, though I don't think I've felt anyone this screwed up in a while. He's got a Guide you said?" He frowned. "How could she let him get this bad? This isn't new. It's been building for a long time. Months at least. How could she let it get this bad? It should be making her sick to have him like this." He repeated the question twice, unable to credit what he was finding, his hands gliding over the Sentinel.

 

People could say what the would about Sentinel Touch. Simon knew for a fact there was nothing like Guide Touch. Having the skilled hands of a Guide on his skin....Simon came close to leaning in, to asking Blair to touch ~him~, not Jim. He wanted it. He really wanted it. It had been so long.

 

The curly haired young man shook his head, disbelieving as he finished undressing the unconscious man. Then he began to disrobe himself. Simon watched with the kind of hunger it was impossible to hide. Blair saw it cataloged it, and never paused.

 

"Ya want to stay, man? I'm going to have to get up in bed with him. You don't have to stay if you aren't comfortable with that."

 

"I had a male Guide." Simon offered as explanation. He knew it was rare, but he'd never regretted Johnny was a man. Even though Joan had had a definite problem with it. Joan had never allowed them to bond in "her" house. Simon shook off the memory. "And I am not letting Jim out of my sight."

 

"Fine by me." Blair clambered up on the wide exam table next to the other man. Guides couldn't be shy. They had to have no hesitation in offering their Sentinel's what they needed, when they needed it. Privacy was a thing of the past once a Guide had his or her own Sentinel. Jim needed to bond. Blair was there for him. Simon envied the insensible Sentinel as the lithe young man wrapped himself around Jim.

 

It was amazing to watch it unfold. Jim's head turned the instant the man was next to him, his face pressing into the hollow of Blair's throat, snuffling at the scent there. There was a theory that some people, people who were Guides, secreted a special scent irresistible to Sentinels. Efforts at scientifically proving it were ongoing, unsubstantiated as of yet. Simon just knew that the instant Jim's nose hit that spot under Blair's chin the whole scent in the room changed. Simon smelled ~guide~. His mouth watered, his body surged.

 

Jim bit the slim, strong throat exposed to his teeth. Not a controlled bite, a savage, desperate one that broke skin and bled the young Guide. What you'd expect from a long starving man faced with a feast offered at the last instant possible to save him from death. Jim's teeth sank in as Simon watched in horrified jealousy, Blair responding with a squeak of real pain.

 

Simon discovered himself at the side of the table as Jim flipped the young Guide onto his belly, transferring the grip of his teeth to the bare, pale nape of Blair's neck, the tie ripped out on the long locks, his fingers digging in deep at the man's hip and thigh, sinews flexed, standing out along the backs of Jim's hands, at his wrists, like cords of wire drawn taut, to the breaking point. Until one hand released, rose, sank into the lush fall of velvet hair spreading out over the young man's back, cascading down his sides. Simon re-evaluated his assessment of that long hair. Unable to resist sinking his own hands into it's rich, wealth of silken curls right along with Jim. Air whooshed out of the smaller man's lungs as the much heavier, much more muscular Jim landed fully on Blair's back.

 

It had to hurt, to frighten him, Simon thought, but Blair never struggled. He surrendered. The surrender washed over him, natural, sweet, perfect, filling Simon's hungry soul to it's very edge, before flooding out to fill the room full of his scent, of the scent of his passivity, of his offering, giving. Simon was in awe as he watched the arch of the Guide's neck and body. The opening of those sturdy, strong legs, falling to either side of Jim's muscle-bunched thighs, letting Jim settle between them, unquestionably dominant. Just as Blair was beautifully, serenely, wonderfully submissive, his vulnerable looking, bare-bottomed feet slipping lower to hook over, somewhat awkwardly, the backs of Jim's calves. Jim's....and Simon's...fingers twined in his hair, tugging his head back, and back. Christ. Simon swallowed, the sight burned into his retinas. Oh Ghod. He could see the pulse racing..there...right under that thin skin....his mouth filled uncontrollably with saliva.

 

Jim whined, a thin, keening sound, urgent, frantic. And just like that Simon knew. Carolyn Plummer had denied her Sentinel, denied Jim bonding. Sex the mundanes called it, not understanding the emotional, psychological impact of the act for a Sentinel and a Guide. Not comprehending at al l what bonding was to the pair. Even if they had never met before the instant they came together.

 

Simon thought he was going to pass out, his ears ringing, and the rage in his heart overwhelming him. This contact, this sex, open and necessary between Sentinels and Guides were what made many in the mundane world refer to them in sage whispers as perverts. Simon's own wife had accused him of being a pervert, questioned his right to being around his own son, asking if Darryl would be safe with his father because of it. But it wasn't perversion. It was physiology. It was Nature. It was the way Sentinels and Guides had to live. And sure as the sun rising, Simon knew Carolyn had denied Jim. Tortured him, using his Sentinel nature against him to control him. As coldly as any executioner putting a criminal to death. Without remorse.

 

Murderous thoughts fought in Simon's brain for supremacy. All boiling down to one urge. The urge to kill. He'd taken one step towards the secured door when a touch stopped him.

 

Simon looked down at his arm. A long fingered hand was wrapped around his own thick wrist. In contrast to his own bulk it looked like a child's hand carved in light toned ivory, curled around a shaft of ebony power. But it was the small hand that held all the power of a king's command for Simon Banks as it tenderly held him in it's grip. The gentle hand was a Guide's hand. The touch, a Guide's touch. The one thing capable of stopping him from murdering Carolyn Plummer right now.

 

Then the hand fell away and a cry filed the air, Jim moving over Blair. A Sentinel claiming his true Guide. After that...Simon couldn't leave.


	2. Chapter 1

  
Author's notes: Simon's dilemma.  


* * *

Carolyn Plummer walked stiffly across the bullpen floor towards the office of Simon Banks. She was livid. She didn't know how he'd managed it, how he had circumvented the very stringent laws protecting Sentinels and Guides, but she knew it was his fault. Someone elses signature was on the form, a doctor's, but she knew where to apportion blame. She could feel it, the animosity the big man held for her. Had always held for her, ever since she paired up with Jim. Captain Banks had engineered all of this.

 

She was being tossed out of Major Crimes. And into Criminalistics. She wasn't happy with that. Not that Criminalistics wasn't a plum. But what was bothering her more than anything else, Jim was being reassigned a new partner. A new Guide. She, after all the work she'd put in, was not going to be a designated Guide any longer. She was losing the extra prestige she'd labored so hard to earn. She was being blamed.

 

That fact burned. She knew she didn't rank high on the Guide Scale. But she was competent, she'd done everything in her power and more to make it work. Jim was the one who was slipping. She was having to pull more and more of his weight to get their cases solved. And if Jimmy hadn't been aware of their declining ratings, she certainly was. Every point was like acid in her gut. And she knew who's fault it really was.

 

H and his handsome Guide Rafe weren't getting better, Detective Sentinel Ellison was getting worse. Slowing down. He wasn't putting in the same effort. he was temperamental, recalcitrant, unwilling to listen to her, unwilling to pay attention. Despite everything she did. She gave him plenty of incentive to improve. She let him know she was aware he wasn't trying, wasn't pushing himself, getting lazy. He didn't seem to realize that in police work, you couldn't rest on your laurels, there was always someone sneaking up behind you, pushing to get ahead. And Carolyn Plummer wasn't going to let someone else win without a fight. Jim, well, he didn't care like she did. He wasn't putting out the effort. She also let him know she didn't have sex with losers. When he got himself together, when he turned himself around, she'd be there. But he was only getting what he earned from her. No free ride.

 

Now this. She ground her teeth. Clearly Simon Banks thought that the numbers were her fault. That she was to blame for Jim's inability to get moving, to get off his ass and keep their numbers up. And Carolyn wasn't going to take that laying down. She wasn't going to let Simon make other people think it was her fault. For some unknown reason people listened to the man. She shook her head. It was beyond her to understand why. He should have had Jim in the office a long time ago, letting the younger Sentinel know exactly where he stood. Letting Jim know he wouldn't tolerate a slacker. Not even for the sake of the Sentinel brotherhood they shared.

 

She was fully aware of her own abilities, capabilities. She also knew she was getting better at her job. She was kicking ass. She had job offers from a dozen other cities, departments. Solely based on her record. If she was getting better...well it was pretty damn obvious that she wasn't the reason their numbers were in the toilet. Someone else was. Duh!

 

But, Simon Banks... Captain Simon Banks was a Sentinel. And so naturally it would be easy for him to do the usual thing and blame the Guide for the Sentinel's failures. It was so predictable and so wrong that she should be the one to pay for it all. Well that was not going to be the way it went down.

 

She could see Simon's dark, bulky shadow through the frosted, insulated glass of his office. Without the extra insulation any one of his Sentinel officers could hear every word of the conversations that went on inside. Carolyn knew for a fact if Jim tried he could still do it. He was that good. Or he had been. But he didn't, he had a very strong moral code, did her husband. Which was why seeing his signature on the papers had come as such a shock. Jim had been a party to this. Unbelievable.

 

They hadn't spoken of it before she was called down to personnel this morning. To be hit in the face with this reassignment out of the blue. She could hardly be expected to track him down in the infirmary to talk about it in front of ghod knew how many witnesses. It was pretty clear he was hiding from her. If he was really sick, which wouldn't have surprised her, Sentinels were sick all of the time, a huge drain on departmental resources...he'd be hospitalized. Just like he'd been six times in the last year. He was just looking for another way to shirk his duty. To avoid explaining this underhanded action to her. To avoid taking responsibility.

 

She knocked on the door, Simon's shadow moved inside, then the door was flung open, Simon towering there, over her, scowling, his unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. It was amazing, she thought, that he could tolerate that powerful stench of tobacco. He never lit them, but chewing on it's end...that still had to be bad. Still had to hurt. Jim cringed around tobacco, around spicy food, any strong smells, loud noises, etc, etc. Anything really. He'd even tried to convince her that her perfume gave him trouble. Her very expensive, very tasteful perfume. As if.

 

Before Simon could growl at her, shut the door in her face, or put her off, she lifted the notarized sheaf of papers she held in her hand and pushed into the office.

 

"This is your fault." She said it loudly enough that anyone, Sentinel or not, in the bullpen could hear her every word. She got what she wanted when her Captain closed the door. Perfect. His action told her what she'd known well enough to put money on it....he didn't want anyone else to know what he'd done. He wanted it to be kept quiet. Fine, then he'd have to grant her a few concessions. Juicy concessions.Depending on how she liked what he had to offer...they'd see if she agreed to go along this transfer. She certainly wasn't going anywhere without getting a raise in pay and in rank. She'd been carrying Jim for months now. She was going to get the due recognition for that. If she needed to get another Sentinel assignment in the future, then she wanted a clean record. And no marks against her as a Guide. She'd more than done her job.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Simon Banks sat down after the woman left. Damn she could yell. And she was totally clueless when it came to her talents, or lack of them as a Guide. She thought she was a good Guide, hell, an excellent one to hear her go on and on about it. Simon had hardly managed to conceal his shock. Carolyn Plummer honestly didn't know she was systematically tearing her Sentinel, her former Sentinel, Simon amended, apart.

 

Jim was so messed up he was still in the infirmary. That kid, Sandburg, was still working with him, the only thing that kept him out of an admission to the hospital wing. Two days. Full contact. Naked skin to naked skin. Hand feeding the other man. Bathing him, giving him the contact he needed so urgently. Blair's touch was gentle, caring, comfort Jim had been denied for long enough it made Simon sick to think of it.

 

The raging skin hunger...Simon had been horrified at how desperately ill Jim was. How had he hidden it? How had he remained on his feet at all this last week? If Blair pulled away, even to take care of his own needs, Jim shook, trembling from head to foot until the Guide was back. Simon had been on the verge of calling ambulance transport the first time he saw that reaction, believing Jim was having a seizure.

 

But Blair had returned as quickly as possible and crawled up into the bed with the tremoring Sentinel, wrapping his arms around Jim's muscular body, scooting so close they might as well have had only one skin between them. Ellison responded by clawing at the other man, urgently dragging him under him, spreading his legs and claimng him. Simon came close to crying out in horror at the frantic edge to Jim's need. Jim thought he was going to be refused, feared Blair would push him away if he gave the Guide any time to think it over. That broke something in Simon's heart to see. Blair held the Sentinel, opened to him, refused him nothing. Healing him a fraction at a time.

 

Jim had given up all his shielding to the new Guide. Necessary to heal. Simon was nauseous when he saw the state his friend was in underneath the shielding. But, he was relieved to note, Jim was getting better.

 

Two days of continual attention. That was unheard of. And it wasn't Jim's fault. Nor was it taking so long because Sandburg wasn't good at his job. The kid was fantastic. Simon's palms itched to get his hands back on the younger man. The Guide. Anyone else, even Janelle with her years of experience working with the police Sentinels, and Jim would have needed to be hospitalized in the Sentinel wing at Cascade General. Something about Sandburg, though, had made a difference.

 

Witnessing Sandburg work...Simon sighed. It was like having real whipped cream after years of the fake stuff. He was good. Real good. His scent, his voice, his touch, his manner, all of it was soothing, enticing. A haven for a stressed Sentinel. Even his hair, which Simon thought would be a distraction was a plus rather than a minus. Simon's huge hands clenched recalling the feel of those wondrous, silk textured curls, Simon wanted the boy so bad he ached with it. All it took was walking into the clinic and he was burning to fill his arms with the short, friendly Guide.

 

Simon smiled a bit at that. The last time he'd visited Jim and Blair in the infirmary during the Sentinel Specialist's third consultation, Jim had his nose buried in all of those wild curls. Not zoned, because this time Jim answered every question the doctor put to him, but blissed out. He had needed what Sandburg gave him. What Carolyn Plummer, his ~wife~ had denied him as part of her bizarre incentive program for improving his performance. It should be a prosecutable crime.

 

When that fact came out during the Sen-Spec evaluation, Simon had barely been able to stop himself from leaving to find the woman. And at the very least yelling at her. His huge hands flexed as he imagined them around her neck. She thought it would be effective, that it was acceptable, a good tactic to essentially torture Jim. There was no other word for it. Torture pure and simple.

 

The Sen-Spec doctor had been so appalled that she had immediately on finishing her evaluation, sent paperwork through to terminate the partnership, and to assign Blair to Jim. Minimum it was a temporary pairing, but it had the potential of becoming permanent. Simon had mixed feelings on that front.

 

Jim was focused on Blair big time. Simon felt a frisson of jealousy, because he was well aware that for once here was a Guide he was also compatible with. But Jim was far more in need of the Guide's attention than Simon was. So Simon tamped down his own needs and made no objection at all. Maybe Jim would find another Guide after he was healed. The accepted practice was to allow a Sentinel to have a pool of candidates to chose from. Exactly what hadn't happened with Carolyn. If she hadn't married Jim, she'd never have gotten approval from the Board to function as a Guide.

 

Blair, not being a police officer would be far more compatible with Simon's job description than with Jim's. So there was some hope left. Some possibility Jim would chose another Guide. Simon might have a chance at Blair, he had to be patient, though. Jim needed Blair a hell of lot more than Simon Banks did. And Simon wasn't about to take anything away from his friend. Jim had had it hard enough. Far harder than Simon had picked up on. Simon felt the guilt over his missing the signs, letting things get this far out of hand. Jim deserved something good. Jim deserved a true Guide, one focused on him. Blair was serving the purpose for now.

 

All Simon could do was to sneak a touch when he visited the infirmary, his hand refusing to obey his will, unable to resist the need. Putting his hand over Blair's back as he lay cuddled on Jim's chest. Simon's fingers spread wide across the Guide's skin, his head down, sinking into the wonder of Blair's aura, surrounded by his scent.

 

There was such a joy in the young man...embracing Simon as well as Jim. It left Simon fighting the urge, the nearly overwhelming urge to lean down and taste the dewed skin, to taste Sandburg. That was as far as Simon let himself go, the hand on the small man's back, no further, resisting the ripe curve of those buttocks only inches lower, though Blair made no move to deny him. Happily offering Simon what he craved, without pulling away from Jim. Simon was so hard it hurt him to walk when he left.

 

No harm in putting his own name forward as a Sentinel of interest. Simon had attached his own name to Blair's file. Along with the tag that would allow Blair, if he also felt any interest in Simon as a Sentinel, to review all of Simon's history. He'd done what he could, now it was up to the other man. And Ellison. Ellison was fragile. Ellison came first. He was too good to lose.

 

Simon shook his head. Carolyn was going to Criminalistics, as a Lieutenant. With a substantial raise. Simon would have paid it out of his own pocket as long as he could afford it just to get her out of his division and away from her husband at work. What the hell he was going to do about Jim's living situation...he had no idea. He wasn't stupid enough to think that just because she wasn't his official Guide any longer, that Carolyn would back off and let a real Guide take over, move in and sleep with her husband under her own roof. She wouldn't even come close to admitting it was what Jim needed. Her expression when Simon had ventured the carefully worded advice, pointed it out to her on the Sen-Spec's recommendations...glacial and disbelieving. Nope, like everything else that had to do with her, it would be a struggle.


	3. Chapter 3

Lt. Jim Ellison murmured, half asleep in the barracks he shared with the other members of his Sentinel Unit. Everyone was asleep, all of them resting after the usual rigors of the day. All except one member of the squad who was up using the facilities, now washing his hands. He was the reason Ellison was restless. He was his Guide. And he wasn't in bed where he should be.

 

From across the room Lt. Benjamin Sarris looked up and saw the restless movement of his fairly new Sentinel and he hurried back to the bed. Growling under his breath, more good naturedly than he'd done when they were first paired a few months back, when he'd hated this assignment with every fiber of his being. When he'd been shocked to hear what Sentinels and Guides did together. What he was expected to do.

 

Ben Sarris knew that he wasn't cut out to be a Guide, but he was good at his job, being a soldier. Being part of a functional, efficient, damn good team. He'd do what it took. The Sentinel he was snuggling up to right now was part of his job and part of his team. And Sarris was honest enough to admit he'd never dreamed of a team that could work like a Sentinel Unit. Every day he worked with his teammates he finished the exercises shocked, disbelieving and filled with pride. It wasn't possible, the things these men could and did do.

 

As Ben eased back into bed, Ellison turned towards him automatically, pressing his nose into the nape of his Guide's neck and inhaling. Goose-flesh broke out all over Ben's skin. Shit. He didn't believe it, every time it happened it was a surprise. Made no sense at all. He'd read all the scientific shit they gave him about genetics, instincts, Guides and Sentinels. Genetically he was a Guide. They told him it explained everything. That for him responding to his Sentinel was normal, though in the rest of the don't-ask-don't-tell Army it was a prosecutable offense.

 

He snorted into his pillow, gasping as Ellison burrowed up closer, until they were fitted together like spoons all along their lengths front to back. Ben felt Ellison through the boxers the other man wore. Hard again, long and thick, not possible to miss that. He shivered. Feeling the odd, the really weird sensation between his legs. He'd never had it before in his life. Never before meeting Ellison. Right square behind his nuts, a tingle, a swelling, a sense of anticipation. It drove him nuts in too many ways. It too was supposed to be a genetic response, according to the doctor who still examined him once a week. He wasn't wired like the rest of the men in the world. Other men, not even homosexual men, didn't experience this feeling. Nor did normal men's bodies lubricate like Guide's bodies did. And Ben hated it. He hated the growing evidence that he was different.

 

Like he did every time it happened...Ben Sarris fought down his agonized embarrassment. He couldn't believe his body wanted this. He couldn't believe it actually, physically prepared him for this act. He'd thought they were lying to him when they explained it in class behind locked doors just the Guides and their instructors. He couldn't meet the eyes of the other men sitting it the class with him. He couldn't look at the power-point presentation beamed up on the screen showing him the glands and the responses that were happening in his body that didn't happen in the bodies of persons who weren't Guides.

 

It took a whole damn week before he and the other Guides in the class could look each other in the eye. It took getting back to field training, to seeing each other working together. It took actually witnessing the feats of the men called Sentinels to make them start to function as a team and not as a group of absolutely, incredibly, humiliatingly embarrassed men.

 

It was then that Ben Sarris started to reluctantly believe some of what he was being told might be true. Guides getting together and talking, shyly, they were men and weren't big on talking at first. But they were also all in a situation that had them floundering. So, eventually, purely in self-defense they began to talk to each other.

 

Ben shook his head, or tried to, but the impulse to bend his neck to expose his throat to the strong, lean, hard man behind him won over that. On most nights the barracks were initially filled with the hot sounds of men having sex as the Sentinels and Guides paired up, re-bonding, reclaiming after the day's exertions. Also one of the reasons Sentinel and Guide units weren't bunked up with regular units. Regular units wouldn't understand why the Sentinels and Guides were allowed this, while they were not. The Army preferred not to foment unrest in it's ranks. They kept the two groups separate. Except for a very few times when other Special Forces detachments might, temporarily be paired with a Sentinel/Guide unit. That, however was rare.

 

Right now it was silent in the barracks room. Except for the rough breath of his half-awake Sentinel in his ear. He was more than familiar with the murmurs Jim was making. He knew what it meant. He knew what was coming next as the big, unnaturally powerful hands of his watchman closed on his hips.

 

Ben Sarris endured it. Or so he told himself. Endured getting hard. Endured spreading his legs for another man. Endured being tasted, licked, bitten, suckled, tasted....he couldn't believe the things Ellison could, and would, do with his mouth. Nothing, no part of his body was off limits. He endured the most intense orgasms of his life. With the man who was fast becoming the best friend he'd ever had. He endured the bonding, he told himself, knowing it was gradually becoming a lie. He wasn't enduring anything. He was anticipating it, and soon, no matter how hard he fought against it, he would start to look forward to it. Someday, maybe someday not so far in the future, he would actually initiate it. He shivered.

 

He rolled onto his back, without Jim's hands guiding him there. He did it voluntarily. He did it...eagerly. He failed to shut the unwelcome admission out of his mind. It was about time he admitted it to himself, he thought sourly, and not without alarm, he wasn't just laying back and thinking of England as the saying went. It wasn't excusable with the usual bantering jokes about a stiff prick having no conscience...not any more it wasn't.

 

Ellison moved over him, nuzzling his throat. Ben automatically made room for him between his legs, tilted his head back, and as the teeth closed gently on his throat, he sighed. Oh fuck. Again. He was hard. Again. And somehow, without Sarris being fully aware of when it happened, Ellison, Jim, had lost his boxers. The thought made Sarris wet. Which made him blush twelve ways to Sunday. Christ.

 

His shorts were gone in moments, torn, his fault for not removing them, for leaving that to his instinct driven Sentinel. Ellison was there, pressing his advantage. More in tune with Sarris' body than Ben was himself. Ellison slid into him, tight but easy, like should be impossible. And Ben stifled his groan, not fighting it, not stopping his legs from winding up, around the other man's waist, locking his ankles behind the small of Jim's back. Driving his own hips up to meet the hips above him.

 

Ghod. Not again. Not again. His fingers dug into the strong flanks, crept lower, clawed. Belying his silent protest. Every molecule of his body wanted this. Craved it. Ellison pushed him down into the mattress. Ben felt his balls lifting, his erect cock leaking, the head reaching for his belly button, hard, hard, hard. Ghod damn. Oh shit. He was wet. Wet as a woman. Wet as his wife when she was really ready for him. He was wet for Ellison. For his Sentinel.

 

Ben groaned again. This time was as incredible as any of the other times. He moaned. Felt an awareness in the back of his mind, knowing their barracks mates were no longer all asleep. Knowing the Sentinels were waking up. That too was supposed to be a Guide thing. Soon after the Sentinels roused, the Guides would wake or be woken by their Sentinels. Sentinels, not surprisingly, mated in packs when it was safe. When one Sentinel claimed his Guide they all were moved to. One claim built on another. Even knowing that, Ben Sarris couldn't stop his increasingly loud, nonverbal reactions to Ellison's claiming.

 

He whimpered. A sound that had never, definitely never, ever, crossed his lips when he was with any woman, not even his wife. He arched up, canting his hips, taking Ellison in deeper, deeper. Spasming around the length of flesh splitting him in two. Driving into him. Gentle...but not.

 

How the hell could he want more? But he did. He whined. He writhed, he clung, sweat beading all over his face and chest. Ellison responding to that with a lapping tongue and pounding hips. Ellison growled, bit and rode him until he felt like he was going to pass out. On the edge for too long. His body singing. His breath gasping. His words begging. On fire. His perceptions swirled. He held on and moaned.

 

All it took for him was Ellison cumming to send him over the rainbow. He screamed. Hearing the echoes around the room. Oh, ghod. Ghod damn. This was the final thing, the piece he couldn't deny. Especially not while he was pouring out his spunk. Just from being fucked. Sorry, claimed....was the word the doctors insisted on using. This wasn't supposed to be sex...yeah right. He came like this, like a volcano erupting from being claimed. From having Ellison's dick jammed up his ass. Without his cock being touched, sucked, stimulated. 

 

He lay on his back panting. Ellison was the one who rose up, out of the bed. Came back and cleaned him. All around them in the dimness other pairs were doing the same thing. This was the part that was most difficult. The examination after. He lay still, this part he did only endure...as Ellison went over every inch of his body. Quickly, but thoroughly. Not forgetting that newly tender place that had welcomed his Sentinel's body.

 

Sarris was lucky to have Ellison. Jim was sensitive. Some Sentinels were more stable than others. More gifted. The most gifted tended to be the most unstable. Requiring the most care. Ellison was an odd mix of talent and stability, easily handled. With the right Guide, he had no problems. He even adapted fairly well to the forced Guide exchange they were put through as part of the training.

 

Ben was pretty damn shocked to be the one who had trouble adapting. He was pissed, almost inconsolable. He was also the reason he and Ellison didn't finish tops in that exercise. Sarris had fought like a wildcat when it came down to being claimed by a Sentinel who wasn't Ellison. He'd bloodied the man's nose and would have done worse damage if Ellison hadn't stopped him.

 

For an entire day Ben had worried he'd wrecked both of their chances at staying in the Special Forces. He worried over how he was going to explain it to his wife. He was almost sick with worry. The demotion, the loss in pay...But it never came to that. The Sentinel Specialists were pleased rather than angry. He and Jim were put into a team of pairs who all had had similar happenings.

 

Heck, he thought as Jim slipped back under the covers of the bunk he shared with his Sentinel partner, some Sentinels didn't even need a regular Guide to function. Jim did best with one, best with him. But It was Ben who was locked onto Jim, not Jim onto Ben. He couldn't lie about that after that day. And he surmised that was exactly the lesson he was supposed to learn. The take home message the Army wanted him to get.

 

He was dependent on his assigned Sentinel, Jim Ellison. Ellison was one of the best. And one of the most difficult to control in some ways, but working with him was a dream. He always pulled more than his own weight. Always balanced perfectly with Ben and the rest of their team. Sarris was permanently attached to him, wherever he went. Their careers were tied together. As were their ranks, and their advancement.

 

As Jim's fortunes went, so did Ben's. And as Ben's fortunes went...etc. As a new father, Ben wanted the best for his family. He applied himself diligently to the task the Army assigned to him. He didn't party, he didn't play, he sent home the lion's share of his pay.

 

At first he hadn't been happy at all. He wanted to be a regular army joe. But that idea quickly changed when he and his wife tried to live on Army pay. So he volunteered for the Special Forces training, determined to succeed, and gratifyingly he did.

 

All of that was according to plan. The Army never stopped evaluating the talents of it's Special Forces troops, however, and it wasn't long before during one of those tests he became aware of more than usual interest in him. Every week someone showed up with a needle and wanted his blood. He rolled up his sleeve and gave it to them, though he had not idea why. No one took the time to answer his questions.

 

A month after the first blood sample had been taken, a Major-General had appeared, scaring the hell out of him and his then training mates. Observing ~him~, actually speaking to him. Then a scientist in the guise of a regular Major. And within a week he met Lt. Jim Ellison. Was introduced to him, stood next to him, freaking out, heart pounding when he caught the other man sniffing at him. It had been the weirdest ten minutes of his life up until then.

 

He hadn't been happy with what they told him next. It was of course presented as his choice. An option he might be interested in, a substantial raise in pay, in prestige. He could volunteer for the assignment to the Special Forces Sentinel/Guide Unit, or not. He would be a Guide. And he'd be upped to First Lt. immediately, his rank matching that of his Sentinel. Who was, if he agreed, Lt. James Joseph Ellison. The man who had sniffed him.

 

Benjamin Sarris couldn't articulate how unhappy that offer made him. He had two weeks to decide. Though a decision made sooner would be ideal. In the mean time he would be educated and oriented on the many nuances of Sentinel care and feeding. He hadn't thought it possible to be unhappier than he was at first. But as the information was spread out for him, he was certain he didn't want anything to do with Guides or Sentinels.

 

His wife was a different story. She thought it was wonderful. All the romantic tales, fairy tales Ben knew, that the civilians had of Sentinels swayed her, and she was eager for him to take the promotion. She wanted to be able to tell her friends her husband was a Guide, that he had his own Sentinel. She was even happy, that given it was the Army, and Special Forces, the Sentinel in question would have to be a man. Not a woman. No competition for her. She had no idea what that meant for him, Ben thought angrily. He'd told her too, in no uncertain terms, seeing her shocked face. She hadn't understood, that much was clear. She thought he was over-reacting. It was the last conversation they had on the subject. After that, when he saw her, they never once spoke about Sentinels or what he did for the Army.

 

He met Jim Ellison a second time after making the most difficult decision of his life. He signed the waivers, and committed to being a Guide. The most unhappy man in the Forces he thought.

 

It wasn't Ellison's fault he concluded, determined to give the other man a chance. The Sentinel was in superb shape, capable of anything the Army asked of him, his reaction time phenomenal, his senses and talents far beyond what Sarris had imagined possible.

 

The bonding was the hard part. Sarris literally gritted his teeth the first month. The first night he'd swallowed the full measure of alcohol the Army permitted Guides. The Army being sensitive that most of the Guides it vetted were not, by choice, comfortable with male on male sex, or bonding to the degree that it couldn't be differentiated from a sexual relationship.

 

Ben Sarris certainly couldn't see a difference between sex and bonding.

 

He sighed, giving up on thinking, as the man behind him settled warmly along his back. It was better if he didn't think about it. Ellison's nose slid into it's familiar position at the base of his neck, Sarris automatically adjusting to accommodate the Sentinel. Once adjusted, he drifted comfortably off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Blair sat crosslegged on the bed, reading the book spread out over his blanketed lap. The Sentinel was curled around the back of his body. There was a warm swatch across his back where the heat of Jim's body was transferred to his.

 

Jim was sleeping again, recovering, as he'd done most of the last two and a half days. But Blair was wide awake and so decided to read a little something to keep his active brain occupied. If Ellison was able to get up and around later, Blair was hoping to go to Rainier and sit in on a seminar, maybe do a little spontaneous lecturing as a surprise drop in speaker.

 

Finding out he was a Guide and making the huge commitment to accept a position with the police department had put a damper on Blair's academic career. Of course the University was bending over backwards to keep him on as a honored lecturer. Having a Sentinel Specialist on staff lent the institution great prestige. They did not want to lose him or make him chose between them or his Guide duties. Of course that arrangement had been before he was assigned to a specific Sentinel. Strangely, working with only one Sentinel took more time and energy than intervening on an emergency basis for the entire Sentinel staff of the Cascade PD.

 

And in particular Jim Ellison was going to be a challenge. He had used three previous Guides as bondmates. Adapting to each individual Guide made him more difficult to match again. Perhaps if he'd only had Sarris, the Guide who had been his best match by far, he would have been simple to mesh with. As it was, his system was more unstable than Blair expected it to be. Hence the prolonged skin to skin contact. Add to that the incomprehensible fact that Carolyn had intentionally withheld contact...which resulted in the Sentinel being unable to reach out to his fellow Sentinels, and Jim Ellison was a mess.

 

Blair as a rule didn't like to second guess the choices other Guides made when dealing with their Sentinels, all Sentinels had unique quirks, but he couldn't help himself in Ellison's case. Plummer had been dead wrong. If Ellison had been any weaker it might have ended tragically. As it was, Jim was getting help just in time.

 

A mess could be very accurately defined as a Sentinel who didn't like it when other Sentinels approached. Not even the Sen-Spec. So they'd had to bring in a different Sen-Spec, a far rarer breed, a Guide who was also a medical doctor specializing in Sentinel care. Guides almost never made it all the way through the rigorous and long training. They were nearly always called in to duty before that. But they'd managed to find Dr. Gillespie. And Jim liked her. He'd purred for her. Blair smiled at the memory of that. The only Sentinels Jim tolerated without a ripple were Simon Banks and Henri Brown.

 

The female Sentinels, Megan Connor and Alex Barnes, usually Jim's close friends, Jim had actually bared his teeth at when they tried to visit. That event had escalated when one of the women touched Blair. Sentinels liked to touch him, and Blair was used to being touched and stroked. Jim hadn't batted an eye when Simon had petted him. But Ellison did not like it when the women did it. The female Sentinels had been aggressively ejected from the room by Ellison who had gone as close to feral as Blair had ever seen any civilized, Guided Sentinel go. It had taken an hour to calm Jim. And another to make the notes in his notebook, Blair's excited brain racing ahead faster than he could scribble down his recollections of the event.

 

Blair reached down as Jim Ellison twitched, at last waking, the beginnings of a fuller awareness tickling at the edges of the Guide's Empathy. Blair put his palm over the Sentinel's well formed skull, spreading his long fingers wide, stroking Jim's bristly, short, soft hair. Military short. Like most Sentinel's. Locked into the watcher/protector roles of society. Not that Blair minded. He believed strongly in many causes, and keeping people safe, people who were unable to protect themselves, was important. He admired the men and women who did those kinds of jobs.

 

Jim stirred, nuzzling into Blair's hand, letting out a gusty, distinctly happy sigh. "Ben?" He licked Blair's palm and down his wrist, drawing the flavor into his mouth with a sound of satisfaction. Then his eyes popped open. Because Blair did not taste at all like Ben Sarris had. Blair tasted like...Blair. The waves of grief and disappointment that flooded over the Sentinel were palpable as well as visible to the observing Blair on the classically handsome features. Blair ached for the other man.

 

"No." Blair answered, his voice low, modulated. "Blair." He corrected unnecessarily. He ruffled his hand over the brush cut again. "How are you doing?" He whispered, as the pale blue eyes closed in pain.

 

OK. A memory, a dream. Ellison's first Guide had been named Ben. Benjamin Michael Sarris, Blair recalled reading in the files. And they had started out, like most military pairings, a bit shakily. The bonding progressed slowly, with significant reluctance on Sarris' part. But it had progressed to a tight bond, highly functional, and the two men had been extremely close when Sarris died.

 

Their team had been on a secret mission to Peru when their helicopter went down. Only Jim survived. He'd had to dig the graves for the other team members, all close friends. He'd had to bury, with his own hands, the Guide that was his entire world at that time. Blair couldn't imagine how hard that had been. He caught a flash of Jim lowering a carefully wrapped body into it's final resting place. His tears running down his face, falling like holy water blessings into the grave after his Guide. Blair felt the pull of the grave on Ellison even now, years later. Jim had wanted to crawl into it himself. He'd wanted to die with his Guide.

 

"Your first Guide?" Blair prompted quietly, to give Ellison an opening to talk if he wanted it. Jim only nodded, moving his stubbled cheek against the palm Blair cupped around his face. Blair felt the moisture gathering on his skin as Jim wept silently.

 

"First Guide." Jim confirmed in a hushed voice. Blair continued to stroke him.

 

So, it was Sarris, then. Jim's first Guide as an adult. Kids didn't get Guides as a rule. Not personal ones. They lived that flowed around places that were filled with Guides. Specially trained and screened Guides. Guides who worked in groups, pairs, never alone. Guides who wouldn't stoop to taking advantage of young Sentinels not ready physically or emotionally to bond. Guides who could be trusted with the growing, hormonal Sentinels. Sentinels were all late bloomers when it came to bonding, claiming and even mundane sex. Some Sentinels never developed the urge. Celibate Sentinels were not uncommon. If you failed to count claiming as sex then about a third of Sentinels were celibate.

 

Blair found anything and everything about Sentinels fascinating. He'd chosen, at the age of fifteen, when he'd found and read the Burton book one cloudy and rainy afternoon in the Rainier University library, to dedicate his life to the history and culture of Sentinels. Who were a separate people within a people. In every society Sentinels were regarded as different. They stood out. Blair was fascinated. He'd fallen in love with the idea of Sentinels. He wanted to be a Guide. When his genetic profile came back as a Guide's profile, he'd never looked back, never had the least regret. Well not because he was a Guide. He did regret some things. Like finding he wasn't compatible with Maya. She'd been so beautiful and he'd loved her so much. But she wasn't meant to be his Sentinel.

 

"So, what was it? A dream?" Blair probed gently, bringing his attention back to Jim. He knew that it had to be, he was picking up enough of the fuzzy impressions racing around in Ellison's mind to know that. Jim reliving moments with Sarris.

 

"Yeah." Those brilliant blue eyes opened again, scanning the room. As if Jim was looking for something to distract him. his eyes were hollow looking. Bleak. But he was solid, Blair felt it. stronger than he'd been in days. Coping with the loss in a healthy manner as a healthy Sentinel would.

 

"Feeling better?" Blair asked a few minutes later. Ellison nodded. Then looked around the infirmary again. Sniffing the air. Assessing his own condition. Blair had bathed the sentinel every morning. And Jim must have approved as his nose didn't wrinkle in distaste.

 

"How long have I been here?" He asked turning his striking eyes on Blair.

 

"This is towards the end of day three." Blair told him. Jim frowned at him gaging the truth of the statement, taking another sniff, then his shoulder shifted in the approximation of a shrug.

 

"No hospital?" Jim asked. Blair shook his head. He ran his hand up the Sentinel's arm. Jim leaned into the touch.

 

"Nope. Nothing I couldn't handle. Here." Blair told him. He closed the monster tome on his lap and set it aside. He couldn't tell if Jim needed to claim him again. But he was going to be ready for him if that was the case. Jim had been abused. And as such he might be hesitant to take what he needed if there were any hints it wasn't on offer. Blair made himself obviously available.

 

"Thanks. I don't like hospitals much. Spent too much time there." Jim relaxed into Blair's side scooting closer. Making no move to begin a claim, just holding him, soaking up Blair's presence. He rested his nose in Blair's hair, snuffling. It sent a shiver down Blair's spine, tightening his nipples. He let the Sentinel know he liked it, found it pleasurable by letting small moan escape. Then he continued the conversation.

 

"Yeah, hospitals suck. I try to stay out of them as much as possible." Ellison's hands were mapping him now. Head to foot, massaging and pressing all over Blair. He mapped Blair in excruciating detail. Guides weren't capable of being shy and doing a good job. Blair had gotten over his own shyness by the time he was eighteen. At least when it came to Sentinels. He wasn't an exhibitionist in the rest of his life. But with a Sentinel, instinct kicked in.

 

Satisfied at last Jim sat up. Stretching experimentally. Assessing his body and it's functions. Continuing to maintain contact between himself and the Guide. Liking it.

 

"When can I leave?" He asked. Blair looked up at him.

 

"You seem almost back to normal. Is that about right?" The Guide asked.

 

"Better than." Ellison replied shortly. "My wife? My Guide?" He asked.

 

"Carolyn Plummer." Blair said her name, keeping his voice as neutral as he could. But Ellison glanced over at him sharply.

 

"Spill." The Sentinel said, voice tight. "What aren't you saying? Did something happen to her? Is that why I am here? Was she hurt?"

 

"Not in so many words."Blair tried to figure out how to impart the news in the most diplomatic way possible. The Sentinel beside him let out a low, menacing growl. A sound filled with tension, with nerves. With threat. But Blair knew the man wouldn't hurt him. On a deep level he and Ellison had bonded. Jim knew that. He just wasn't consciously aware of it yet.

 

"My Guide." Jim demanded, eyes glinting, his very white teeth flashing. More than human sharp. Built in weapons that a very generous Mother Nature had provided her watchmen.

 

Blair put his hand on Ellison's thigh, Ellison eased up, whether or not he wanted to. He tried to snarl, but his face wouldn't co-operate. Blair fought back a smile at the look. This was a serious business Jim had to understand. "Carolyn is still your wife, and she is fine. But, I'm your Guide. For now."

 

"How is that possible? I didn't sign...." He frowned. Remembering signing something when he was still in a fog. He glowered ineffectually.

 

"You did, on the Sen-Spec's advice. I signed, too." Blair offered, keeping his voice even, soothing as he sensed the conflict within the man.

 

Ellison's expression was that of a trapped man. Blair almost expected him to move away, out from under Blair's hand. But instead he reacted as a Sentinel, clapping his own hand over Blair's. Holding it there. Interlacing their fingers.

 

"No." Ellison shook his head, reflexively baring his teeth again, warning away any enemy, buying time to think. There were no enemies in the room, only Blair, but the action was a deeply ingrained one, especially in military trained Sentinels.

 

"Carolyn, your former Guide, she isn't a good match. Not good enough to keep you healthy." Blair said calmly, keeping the urge to tell Jim just how rotten of a Guide his wife was, under tight control.

 

Jim frowned. He'd heard that before. His brown lifted. "Simon." He said.

 

"Simon said that." Jim clarified when Blair looked the question at him.

 

"Simon carried you here." Blair told him. "You passed out in his office. You were in extreme distress. You are lucky you weren't alone when it happened.

 

"No offense, Chief, but you don't fit in around here." Ellison was looking him over in the socially assessing way, not the Sentinel way. Unspoken was the implication that Carolyn Plummer did fit in. Blair didn't take the observation personally.

 

Blair actually snorted. "And this is the only place you do fit in!" He shot back, eying the military short hair cut, the ramrod posture that was apparent even with Ellison sitting in bed, naked. He giggled. Ellison looked startled then pleased at the sound. Happy Guides made happy Sentinels. Blair thought it had probably been a while since Ellison had been around a happy Guide. Another mark against Plummer.

 

Jim allowed that comment to slide. The kid was probably right. People never doubted he was a cop. Usually not even demanding to see his shield. So the kid, the Guide was most likely right. They would be an odd looking couple. Maybe not compatible. There were too many differences. And there was Carolyn.

 

"Need to see my wife." He muttered. But he made no move to get up.

 

"Sure, Jim." Blair said, tugging over a phone and handing it to the Sentinel. "Simon was here not to long ago. He said she is wrapping up files in Major Crimes before her transfer."

 

"Transfer?" The voice was dangerously low. Vibrating with another warning. "What are you talking about? She isn't..."

 

Blair leaned forward, putting himself in the larger man's lap. "Calm down, big guy." He soothed. "Simon's coming back soon. I told him you'd be awake and recovered enough to talk today. In my opinion." He added as Jim narrowed eyes at him.

 

"What? You a doctor?" Ellison challenged him. Again with the snarl. Blair ignored it.

 

"Yeah, I am. But not a medical doctor. I'm an Anthropologist. PhD. I did my research on Sentinels."

 

Jim examined him closely. Then shook his head. "Too young," he said firmly. Blair had none of the little signs of aging that would show his age as anything over early twenties.

 

"Too young? For what? I assure you I am of legal age. For everything, except retirement benefits." Blair grinned at the taller man. His eyes were caught by the long, thick muscles of the Sentinel. Ellison had a body to die for. Blair was a tiny bit bi-curious and Ellison was tickling every curious molecule in his body. He forced himself to concentrate. Jim held the phone on his knee, not dialing. Just staring at Blair.

 

"Twenty-two, Twenty-three." Jim muttered. "Too young to have a PhD."

 

"Not if you start when you are fifteen." Blair answered. And Ellison blinked. Then nodded. Then he dialed the Sentinel Division.

 

Even Blair could hear Simon's cross, irritated bark as he answered. Simon was probably having trouble with his senses. Blair was very much aware of how desperately the big man needed a Guide of his own. The loss of control of his dials was just one sign. The way it was impossible for Simon not to touch him was another. He'd dialed down his hearing too low in an effort to cope without the use of a personal Guide. If Ellison hadn't been plastered against Blair, his hand lazily winding in the long, mahogany curls, he would have winced at the volume.


	5. Chapter 5

"Christ no, Caro." Jim looked aghast at his wife's suggestion. The tumbler holding his drink began shaking in his hand. Hastily he put it down the bottom of it rattling on the polished table as he did. Carolyn shared a glance with him, her eyes inflexible, certain as they met his. He swallowed convulsively. She couldn't be right about this...could she?

 

"I am a Guide and a wife, Jimmy. Don't tell me you never thought about the similarities." Carolyn Plummer asserted. "All this talk about sex, non-sex, claiming, bonding...it is all the same. I know. I've had both, and there is no difference." She hid her satisfaction at the look of unease on her husband's handsome face. She knew she had the advantage. While Jim wasn't exactly homophobic, it did make him uncomfortable when the label was used in reference to himself. "I know it isn't pleasant to think about, but I've been warning you for years. You just haven't been listening."

 

"It isn't like that." He said desperately. "I am not gay. I married you because I love you, and I want you. Physically, sexually. You are a beautiful woman." His gaze begged her to say she knew that. To tell him he was right. He wanted to tell her he never liked bonding with anyone but her, his only female Guide. That, though wasn't true. He'd loved Sarris. He'd loved touching the other man. He'd loved claiming him. He'd never felt better than after claiming Ben. Healthy, vital, invigorated, alive. His senses singing.

 

But that was the last thing she planned to say, that he was right and she was wrong. Saying that would disrupt all of her plans. She wasn't his Guide officially. But that could change if he asked, formally requested to have her back. Then she would get him and her position back, while retaining her new rank and higher pay. Win win for her. The alternative was having that...that...man, the hairy, filthy boy, with his big eyes, suck-me mouth and long curly hair move into their home. She would have to share her house and her husband with a hippie. A male hippie. A sex fiend. He probably smelled, ghod knew when he bothered to wash. It could not be tolerated. She would stop it now.

 

Carolyn leaned in. She put her hand on her husband's knee. She didn't fail to note the jump her touch caused. She could still affect him, she thought with satisfaction, failing to note the panic that flashed over Jim's face. There was still time for her to foil Simon's plan. "Jimmy. Trust me. I saw you with him. It is homosexual sex. He had homosexual sex with you." She sat back shaking her head. "I can't believe you are denying it. How can you not see it?"

 

James Joseph Ellison was speechless. He was also red faced. He'd never have predicted Carolyn would say this to him. Accuse him of being gay, when she had been the one who abandoned their marriage bed. He also couldn't believe she'd accused him and Blair f having gay sex and that she'd watched them. He dropped his chin onto his chest. Heard her voice fill with satisfaction at his flush. At his unconscious flinch. He didn't want her...anyone, he corrected himself, touching him now. His skin started to itch and to crawl, he felt the rash start. It was so different from the way he'd felt these last few days in the infirmary. Touch had been so safe then. When it had been just him and Blair.

 

Blair's touch was so different from hers. He wished it wasn't. He felt Blair's caring, every stroke had soothed things rooted deep in his soul. Things that had been bruised, wounded and bleeding. Blair's touch had healed them. Could Blair really only be after sex with him? Did he not care? Wasn't he a Guide? Jim's Guide. Jim felt the foundations that had been gradually rebuilding with Blair's diligent attention, slowly begin to crumble again. He didn't look up as his wife gathered up her things. He shuddered, clasping his hands together tightly.

 

"Carolyn." His voice was filled with quiet urgency, hoarse, rough edged. She had to understand. "I swear to you I am not looking for a gay relationship. I am not gay. You are my wife..." He choked, trying to tell her she came first, before all others. But the words wouldn't come out. Jim Ellison did not lie. And he knew that his Guide had to come before his wife. No sweat when Caro had been both. Now...she wasn't. Now...ghod. How could he tell her Blair came first? He wasn't stupid, he might be confused, sure, but not stupid. There was no way he could tell her his new Guide came first. Had to come first. Another shudder wracked his body. Blair couldn't come first, not if he wanted to save his marriage.

 

"I know you are not. But you can't deny that it would be easier on the Sentinel/Guide establishment if you and the other male Sentinels were gay. There are so many more male Guides available. I am not surprised they try to change you. If all of you were gay, then they'd have their simple matches, and not have to worry about wives at all. It is the answer to their problems." No one could miss the thread of cruel pleasure of... accomplishment in her tone. Jim felt ill. She rose to her feet.

 

"I've got to go to work. But I've made up my mind on this. That man can not come into our home, Jimmy. He can't live here with us. Not when his aim is to take advantage of you like he is. He is luring you into a homosexual relationship. And I won't put up with it under my roof. I love you too much not to protect you." She kissed his mouth and left him to his confusion.

 

He sat immobile on the sofa. His hands clenched on his thighs, nausea rising in his throat. His gaze fastened on the middle distance. His hearing filled with a buzzing, loud, deafening, and not registering fully as the fly that caused it flew rapidly past the Sentinel and into another room. Jim slipped into the zone without even fighting.

 

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The ringing of the doorbell brought Jim out of his semi-zone. He staggered to his feet and over to the door. His legs felt like cement from the long immobility. He tried to shake circulation back into them as he clomped over to the door. The ring was followed by a brisk, oddly happy sounding knock.

 

He finally managed to drag the door open. His Guide stood there, beaming happily up at him. He felt a layer of darkness peel off of his heart at the sight. But, it couldn't be that easy. He had Carolyn's dictates to consider. Her feelings. His marriage. He felt his heart darken again.

 

Blair along with two packed suitcases stood in the doorway, on the wide porch. Blair. Who Caro had forbidden him to let in to stay despite the fact they had half a dozen guest rooms. Blair who Caro wasn't going to tolerate in their house. No matter how badly Jim needed him. Jim stared at the bags with guilt and trepidation. His throat tightened. Christ he was going to cry. In front of Sandburg. He couldn't.

 

"You can't stay." Jim blurted out, defensively, attacking to stave off the flow of tears that threatened. His voice was choked, not his own. Filled with raw emotion.

 

Blair blinked at him. Stared. Saw the suspicious sheen in the cool blue eyes. Trouble. All his empathy rang warningly with the knowledge that something had changed from the time he'd let Ellison go home with his concerned, solicitous wife hanging onto his arm and now. Blair never should have said yes. He should have told her no, taken Jim with him. Not given her a chance to rip another hole in this good man's chest. Fuck, how had he been so stupid. He should have said Hell No. Even seeing how grateful Ellison was for the attention his wife was paying him, Blair should have said no. But he hadn't and now he had definite trouble..

 

Blair thought the two of them would go home, have some sweet make up sex, cuddle, that kind of thing. Sex was one of the many things Ellison needed. Since he was a Sentinel who did have sexual urges it was important he had a vigorous sex life. He required the contact and the love. That had been the impression Plummer gave to him when he'd agreed to let her drive Jim to the house. Blair would pack his bags and meet them at the large Ellison home, a wedding gift from Jim's wealthy father. More than enough room there for him, Jim had said.

 

Blair hadn't been wrong about the quickly concealed outrage he'd seen on Plummer's face at Jim's statement. This reaction proved it. And they hadn't had make up sex. Any kind of sex. Jim was dressed in the same clothes. And his eyes weren't relaxed, or happy, they were wounded. The skin around them tense, stressed. He smelled faintly of alcohol. Alcohol. Jeez. Sentinels and alcohol rarely were a good combination. Maybe a beer once in a while. But not the hard stuff.

 

So no sex, but plenty of alcohol. Blair came very close to swearing. No stress reduction. Even bad sex wouldn't have given him that expression. Well, not unless it was really, really bad. Blair realized he hadn't found out yet what kind of sexual relationship his new Sentinel shared with his wife. He would have to find out. He had a feeling it was not going to be good news for his Sentinel. But now wasn't the time. That much was obvious.

 

"Uh, what's going on, big guy? I thought we'd agreed there is plenty of room for me here. You need me available until you find a permanent Guide." Blair kept this tone gentle. His voice soothing. He projected acceptance, calm, and caring at the distressed Sentinel. He did not push his way inside like he wanted to. He did not grab the other man in his arms and hold him, giving what comfort he could. Jim was too fragile to cope with an aggressive Guide right now.

 

Ellison looked utterly miserable. He shook his head, his fist tightening on the doorknob, his other hand fastened on the edge of the door, white knuckled. Blair heard the rasp of callouses on the carved metal and painted wood.

 

"No. It...well it's not going to work." Jim said at last. He was filling the doorway, his shoulders slumped. Blair ached to hug him, his Guide's instincts railing at him to hurry up and touch the Sentinel, but Jim was hiding behind the door. A shudder wracked him head to foot. His skin paled in a wave. He looked like he was afraid, terrified...and on the verge of a faint.

 

Blair had had it. He set his cases down on the stoop. The house was not directly on the street, it's courtyard was protected by a wall and a wrought iron gate. He would just have to chance them being stolen. Jim was more important than clean underwear, a few T-shirts, jeans and flannel shirts. He reached out. Holding his hands out, offering not grabbing. Gently his grip settled around the vibrating arms of his Sentinel. Blair held on. Ellison was well on the road back to another infirmary stay. In just a few hours his work, Jim's efforts at healing, were being destroyed. He tamped down the rage he felt at the woman who professed to love this man. Damn the woman. Did she have any idea what she was doing to her husband, any compassion at all?

 

"Listen, Ellison, we need to talk. I'll leave my stuff out here. But I am coming inside. You are my responsibility now. I care about you. You've also just been released from the infirmary. You need me here, close." No matter what your wife says. He added silently to himself. He was sure that was where the trouble had arisen.

 

Blair guided Jim back into the living room. He eyed the stiff, narrow, white couch with disfavor. That was no place to relax a tense Sentinel. He walked with Jim down the right hand hall. Just a guess on his part, but it was away from the main wing. Away from the master bedroom suite, was Blair's guess. He did not want to take a chance in hell at ending up in that woman's bedroom. The second door he tried yielded a guest room.

 

Bright, warm, with curtains that he might close. He sat Jim on the bed and drew them to, reducing the light to an amber glow. Then he moved without haste back to his jumpy, very unhappy Sentinel. Jim looked up at him, dark rings under his eyes. His face seemed to have aged by ten years. Blair cupped his cheek.

 

"Do you want to fuck me?" Jim Ellison asked him as Blair neared and stood in front of him, touching his face. Blair felt a frisson of alarm at the question. "Are you gay?" Aggressive tone. Trembling limbs. Bad, bad, bad.

 

"Jim. You need to get into bed. Undress and under the covers, now. I am not trying to hurt you. Or take advantage of you." Blair offered mildly, going down on his knees in front of the Sentinel, making himself smaller, more submissive. He kept every hint of seduction out of his expression. Even the slightest hint that he found Jim beautiful, attractive or desirable would be dangerous now. He saw Jim register his answer as an evasion. Blair gritted his teeth.

 

"You are the Sentinel. I am the Guide. The Sentinel claims the Guide." Blair offered the upset man what comfort he could. All this bizarre contorting that society went through to assure men they weren't having gay sex. Blair never thought it was such a big deal. But some men and some women did think it was. To Blair it didn't matter. Being close, having sex or bonding or claiming....it was all about making contact and being close and meeting needs. It was about caring. The insistence on labels...well that was just a joke, counterproductive. But he also knew not everyone was as practical about it as he was. Add to that, he was attracted to his new Sentinel. And he couldn't lie about it. Jim deserved truth.

 

Ellison's eyes flamed when Blair made the statement. The words called to his alpha male, dominant Sentinel side. He wanted to stake his claim again. He wanted to make Blair his. He wanted to bond, to ease the headache that was building, pounding behind his eyes. To get rid of the red rash that was crawling over his skin. His big hands fastened on Blair's flannel shirt and he yanked the smaller man close.

 

"Mine." He snarled into the startled face. Tearing at the flannel, pulling one of the sleeves completely free, the fabric ripping with a sharp, high sound. Blair forced himself to submit, not make any protest. Not to forget this was his Sentinel and he didn't need to defend himself.

 

Jim had Blair's shirt off, and his T-shirt and was working on his jeans. Blair was stunned by the flurry of violent activity, the ripping and tearing, the frantic nature of it all. He ran his hands as comfortingly as he could over whatever parts he could reach. Jim growling and showing his teeth. Making sure Blair saw the bared teeth, felt the hard nips on his shoulders and neck. Then he was naked and face down. Jim's teeth fastened on his nape. He lowered his head, gave in to the pain. Spread his legs. Lifted his hips.

 

Jim was on him and in him that fast. Blair winced. Fighting down the cry that rose in his throat. His Sentinel wasn't at fault here. That bitch was. Blair let out a moan when he was sure he could without it sounding like he was being hurt. It did hurt. But it wasn't anything he couldn't endure for his Sentinel's health. Jim couldn't take one more assault. One more accusation. He needed Blair to accept, to be his oasis. His succor.

 

Jim wasn't a violent man. But need and fear and worry were driving him just now.

 

"No. No. No." Jim said under his breath. His voice harsh, anguished. His hands held Blair very still, knotted in the long locks, no caresses, no mapping. Unnatural for a Sentinel to restrict the touching of his Guide like this. Blair once more burned at the ground lost in the few hours they'd been apart.

 

"Sentinel." He murmured. "My Sentinel. I am your Guide. I am yours. Take me. Claim me. I am yours." With every quiet word he felt Ellison relax. The thrusts into his body became less punishing, longer, less like the the other man was stabbing him, and more like he was bonding. Joining in the way nature intended for them. Blair's natural lubrication was finally catching up, and the painful strokes became sweeter, pleasurable.

 

Blair at last could moan in honest pleasure, let Jim hear the satisfaction he had in serving his Sentinel. His devotion to what the Sentinel needed. The need that became his own. Jim's teeth left his flesh. He felt a lick over the broken skin. Better. He felt their bodies mesh. Ghod. Perfect. At times like these Blair knew this was why he was born. This was his reason for being alive. He belonged in the arms of the Sentinel.


	6. Chapter 6

Blair carefully sponged the hives dotting Jim's back with cool water to reduce the terrible itch the rash was causing. Jim had been distraught, imagining his wife's reaction to Blair being in her house when she returned. The rash had been lessened somewhat by their bonding, but it was still much in evidence when Blair began to carefully look his Sentinel over for problems. Jim's discrete efforts to scratch his back without being caught led him to the problem. He didn't bother to ask the Sentinel for permission, he just began taking care of it.

 

Once found out, Jim lay quiescent, trusting under Blair's ministrations as the Guide worked to alleviate the rash. His breathing was slow, a soft huffing in and out. Blair felt his heart skip a beat as he looked down at the wide shoulders, muscular back, and the classic profile. Such a beautiful man. Such a good man, he added. A Sentinel well worth having. A Sentinel who deserved good care. A dedicated Guide. If only his wife would come around to that way of thinking. Accept that Jim needed what she wasn't qualified to give. What genetics prevented her from even having the ability to offer.

 

Sighing Blair gave in to the compulsion to run his unoccupied hand over Jim's proud, well shaped head. Jim mumbled drowsily and burrowed into the touch. Blair's chest twinged again, he felt tears prickle in his eyes. Jim murmured, his nose twitching, scenting the salt of Blair's tears. He started to roll over, but Blair put a restraining hand on him, holding him in place. Stroking his long, powerful back.

 

Strokes that went from the base of Jim's strong neck, to the round, absolutely stunning full, curved mounds of his buttocks. Loving moves, sweet and meant to transmit all the affection that was growing within Blair for this man. His fingers lingered over the exquitely perfect dimples above the swell of Ellison's hips. Even for a Sentinel in his prime, Jim was extraordinary. And Blair was falling for him.

 

He was furious with Jim's conniving wife. He wished she was here so he could yell at her, take out his frustrations by telling her everything that was wrong with the was she was treating this extraordinary man. Yet, he snarled internally, he was equally glad she wasn't here. She was trouble, and he wanted her as far from Jim as he could keep her. He shook his head sadly. Which wasn't very far. She was Jim's wife. And Jim still wanted her. Blair could feel it.

 

He knew he had to talk to someone. Simon came to mind. He would talk to the big man as soon as he finished caring for his slumbering, purring Sentinel.

 

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Blair had called him. Simon beamed at his secretary, Rhonda. A psychology major at Rainier, she'd given up working towards a degree to take a position in the Sentinel Division. She was niether a Guide or a Sentinel, but she fit right in. The blond woman stared at her boss, dumbfounded and distrustful, clinging to the sheaf of papers she held to her chest. Simon Banks didn't beam at anyone. Simon grinned bigger. Rhonda's eyes widened. Then she scurried back to the safety of her desk. She kept a wary eye fixed on Simon.

 

Blair wasn't around the station, that loss had been a huge blow to Simon. He'd fallen into a routine, every morning, every afternoon since Jim's stay at the Infirmary began Simon visited. He went to see Jim, Jim being both his best friend and a fellow Sentinel, but he also went to see Blair. Now Blair was gone.

 

Simon's senses rebelled. He felt nausea, headache, irritability, the lights were too bright, sounds piercing, everything and everyone but H and Rafe reeked, he wanted to be anywhere but here. Not even H coming in to throw a friendly arm around him helped much more than a few minutes. And Rafe...Rafe took one look at him and stepped up to press himself along Simon's body, Simon clung to the Guide, Henri watching carefully but not interfering. Contact with Rafe helped even more than H's hug. But of course the two detectives had to work. Had to go out on their calls and leave Simon alone. He'd sighed, gritting his teeth and forced himself to work.

 

So, when he'd picked up the phone, his head pounding with the daily headache he had to wrestle with most of the time now, he barked irritably into it. Hoping to intimidate whoever was on the line into hanging up and leaving him alone. It had worked with the Mayor's frazzled assistant. But it didn't work with the man on the line this time.

 

"Simon." Cool relief flowed out of the phone, soothing away his pain, returning the sounds and lights to a bearable intensity. He moaned his relief into the mouth piece.

Which brought a giggle from the other end. "Simon." Blair repeated, sounding suddenly far happier than only a few moments ago. Simon gripped the phone with both hands.

 

"Blair?" Simon said unnecessarily. His hold tightened. He wished he could reach through the phone and touch him. He ached to touch the Guide. The need was deep and abiding. He almost cried out. He struggled to get himself under control. But the longing wouldn't retreat.

 

"I need your help." Blair said, not beating around the bush. And he proceeded to go into the explanation of what was happening with Carolyn and Jim, so far as he was aware of it. "She has refused to let me stay here with Jim. I need a place Simon. A place a Sentinel would be comfortable." No way would Jim tolerate staying in his warehouse apartment with it's drafts and lack of insulation as well as the noises of incessant construction. Oh, and the rats he shared tenancy with on occasion. Yes, he could just imagine how well Jim would deal with rats....

 

Carolyn. Simon felt his ire rise. He shook his head, brow beetling. He should have expected this from her. He shouldn't have been so forgiving, so ready to appease her, to use bribes to get her away from Jim. It had left her with the wrong impression. It had left her believing she had the upper hand. The wrong idea. He should have cut her off at the knees. But he'd felt sorry for her losing Jim like that, and happy to settle for freeing Jim from her unskilled Guidance. Now he was sorry he'd let her off so easy.

 

Carefully he cradled the phone, his temper singing down his nerves. Jim came first. Then he would let Carolyn see what challenging the welfare of Sentinels bought you. He grinned, showing his sharp teeth. He was willing to bet she wouldn't expect it, and he knew she wouldn't enjoy it. But first...Jim. He reached for his keys. He had a stop to make.

 

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Simon unlocked the door to the loft apartment on Prospect. He'd picked up the keys from the Sentinel Division Resource Center. The Center kept a series of residences cleared for emergency use and permanent assignment to Sentinel/Guide pairs when they couldn't meet in their own residences. Spouses weren't often any more understanding than Carolyn. She wasn't unusual in that way. He stood aside once inside the door to let the vigilant Sentinel enter, followed by the Guide.

 

Jim put out a hand, stopping Blair in the doorway, next to Simon. Jim wouldn't allow Blair to go further in until he'd scoped out the entire new territory. Blair obeyed the touch, stopping and waiting for Jim to give him the OK to enter. Simon felt approval. He'd already stopped by on the way to Jim's to make sure it was acceptable. But Jim was doing what any Sentinel would on entering a new location.

 

Jim might be confused over the right thing to do as far as Blair and Carolyn were concerned, he might be struggling to fit both into his life, but he was still doing the right thing. The instinctive thing, he was protecting the Guide. His Guide. He was making sure the territory was safe for Blair before letting Blair further inside.

 

Patiently, Simon waited with Blair beside the door as they watched Jim do his thing. Jim had shot him a telling look and Simon nodded, accepting the responsibility for Blair's well-being while Jim searched the loft apartment for threats or anything at all that might pose a risk to the Guide. Simon meant to be professional, to surrender Blair totally to Jim. But he had no strength to stop his hand from going up and resting on Blair's shoulder.

 

The contact was like oil over troubled water. Balm. Sweet relief. Simon lowered his head, sinking into the sensation, helpless to resist it. Only the smallest of motions, and Blair was leaning against him. Blair let his head drop back to rest on Simon's deep chest. He smiled up at the big man looking down at him with brown eyes burning near black with the intensity of Simon's regard.

 

Blair swallowed. His eyes were held. Fixed. Slowly he turned, his hand sliding up and around Simon's back, holding him in an embrace that Simon welcomed with every cell of his being. He closed his eyes, letting touch overcome all his other senses for the moment, not trying to hold back the sound that escaped him, a whimper. He listened for trouble, he sniffed the air, watching, doing his part to protect the Guide...but he couldn't open his eyes. His nose lowered, until he was hunched down, scenting Blair's hair, along his temple, feeling the gentle pulsing of the artery under Blair's skin. He pressed his full mouth to that heavenly pulse, the rhythm, the sound and feel of the Guide's heart. He sighed, a sound of such longing, of wonder. Blair rose up on tiptoe, holding tighter still. Simon had no choice, he looped an arm under Blair's hips and lifted him.

 

Simon felt the new touch. A caress, up over his head, to the back of his neck. A strong, hard, calloused hand. Not Blair. He slitted his eyes open, seeing Jim, expression sad, understanding. Compassionate. Simon stood, half crouched over and around the smaller man he held, Blair's feet dangling in the air. The Guide, with Jim, the rightful Sentinel, the bonded Sentinel watching him, and he still couldn't let go.

 

Simon let out a hurtful moan, arguably a sob. Sorry, he was so sorry.... Jim stepped closer. Looping his arm around Simon, bringing himself up against Blair's back. The Guide between their larger bodies. Jim hugged them both, Simon and Blair. Something Simon hadn't seen Ellison do do for months. Voluntarily touch another Sentinel. Joy warred with sadness in Simon's heart. It could only mean Blair was the right one for Ellison. Jim was stronger. Healthier. Blair. Blair wasn't his. Simon had to let him go.

 

Sniffling manfully, Simon eased his hold on the Guide. Jim was healing, Simon refused to be the cause of any relapse. It was impossible to do, but he could do it. With great care, he lowered Blair's feet back to the floor. He moved back by fractions of centimeters. Until there was space between him and the Guide. The only remaining contact, Blair holding his trembling hand in a surprisingly strong grip.

 

Jim and Blair looked around, Jim with an arm around his Guide, palm fitted around the curve of Blair's waist and Blair, startlingly, leading Simon beside them, not giving up his hand. Meekly, gratefully, Simon let himself be led. Cherishing the few extra minutes of contact.

 

The apartment was clean to Blair's eyes, but he saw and heard Jim's exasperated sniff and knew that if he agreed to move in here, his Sentinel was going to be doing some serious cleaning.

 

Simon was happy that Jim was distracted for a little while. Blair had gently tried to get a promise out of him to stay here with Blair tonight. Jim had demurred, mentioning he had just spent three nights away from his wife. Simon had bitten his tongue to the point of tasting blood, Jim's head whipping around at the smell of it, but Simon said nothing. Jim turned his attention back to Blair where it should be. Simon resolved to stay silent, no matter how strongly he felt. Jim and Blair would have to make their own way in this relationship.

 

Blair gritted his teeth. That was his point, the one he was trying to make, Jim needed to spend time away from the woman who had been his Guide. Jim had been away from Carolyn and he'd felt better than he had since meeting back up with her. But Jim was being deliberately obtuse. Not going where Blair led, or following when beckoned. Blair couldn't afford to push too hard. Not and protect Jim's ego. That was what he had to do. To protect his Sentinel, to shield him from a world ringing, buzzing, and filled with too much sensory information. In order to do that, he had to rely on Jim's trusting him. Jim had to know Blair had his best interests at heart. No agenda but taking care of his Sentinel's needs.

 

Blair was left hoping and praying the woman would at least be willing to love her husband. Take him to bed. Hold him. Give him the affection he was starved for. She'd gone down the other path, putting doubts in Jim's mind about what Blair wanted from him. She'd tried to destroy the fledgling trust they were nurturing. It was a fragile time in their bonding. Carolyn needed to stop undermining the bond, and stop attacking Jim's confidence. She needed to be part of rebuilding him, Blair hoped that she would, but lacked any real belief that she had such intentions. At least not until she had regained the advantage she wanted to have over ~her~ Sentinel. The very idea of a Guide wanting to do that to a Sentinel was so wrong on so many levels Blair almost couldn't understand it.

 

Carolyn wanted to control her husband. Which would be a bad thing. Very bad. If he was mundane, Blair would still think it bad, but then it wasn't his business. This however was his Sentinel. And it was his business. He had to find a way to build Jim up, and protect him from his wife at the same time. A wife Jim loved. A less than loving wife who could destroy Jim.

 

Blair couldn't let that happen. He exchanged a look with Simon, and saw the same determination in the large captain's face.

 

Blair and Ellison were bonding well. Ellison was open and physically demanding, possessive. Taking for granted his right to handle Blair in public or in private. All healthy signs in a Sentinel. Blair was beginning to relax, hoping they had passed the hump. But it was too soon to be sure of it. Jim could still, suddenly backslide faster than Blair could compensate for. With or without Carolyn's dubious help. And that would land them right back in the infirmary. The last place Blair wanted Jim to be.

 

Simon left the key with Blair when he dropped them at Ellison's house. Jim had refused to let Blair stay in the loft the first night alone. He'd insisted when pushed, that Blair also could not go back to his apartment. Blair had not pointed out that he had no where else to go since Carolyn had refused to allow him to stay in their home.

 

He also didn't say anything when Jim was the one to carry his suitcases into the guest room they'd christened a few hours earlier. Wisely keeping his mouth shut, Blair followed his Sentinel. He ate the food Jim put in front of him. Letting Jim pick out the bites he wanted Blair to eat. He let Jim take over the fork halfway into the meal, and feed his Guide. Jim washed his hands, then washed Blair's, holding them between his much larger one's and soaping them gently. Then drying them.

 

He went with Jim into the Rec Room and watched the Jags basketball team lose a squeaker on TV. He shared a beer with Jim. Then two. Jim not offering him his own bottle, Blair not asking, knowing Jim wanted to taste him every time they traded for a sip.

 

It wasn't until the front door opened that Jim concentrated on something other than his new Guide. His head shot up, and his expression went so blank Blair couldn't read a single emotion.


	7. Chapter 7

Control. You have got to stay calm and in control or the little bastard is going to win,. thought Carolyn when she saw the wild haired punk sitting next to her husband. Close as lovers. She bared her teeth as she spun around so her face was hidden. She turned away using the pretense of setting her briefcase on the floor. Giving herself a few moments to regain her composure, to think her plan through, to revise her strategy. No college aged hippie was going to beat Carolyn Plummer at strategy.

 

The Guide who had taken what was rightfully hers was sitting on the couch. he was one of the reasons she'd been told she wasn't a Guide. Because of the little shit sitting like he had the right to be here, invading her home, her life. stealing from her.... Practically in her husband's lap. No doubt wet for her husband, wanting to spread his hairy legs...she squinched her eyes shut on that visual. How could Jim do that? Evan turning off the lights wasn't enough to hide the facts for a Sentinel. How could he?

 

Control damn it. She slipped off her jacket and coat. She hung up her coat, buying herself another few moments to cool down. She had to stay calm. Taking out her gun and shooting the Guide wasn't cool. Wasn't rational. Carolyn prided herself on her rational mind. Her dominion over her emotions. She had control. And she had to use it.

 

She could still win. If she kept her head. If she didn't lose it and start yelling. Jim was her husband. Not Sandburg's. No matter what, Jim and Blair would never marry. Jim would never tell that self-righteous hairball he loved him. She let herself feel a itsy bitsy wave of fierce satisfaction at the thought. Yeah, Jim would never marry the Guide.

 

She turned and went back to the Rec Room. She nodded calmly, taking the time to smile at her husband. Her body loose-limbed, supple, female, radiating sensual promise. She saw Jim's look fasten onto her as if he was hypnotized. Bingo. She wanted to howl her victory. Just that much, that little softening of her movement, and Jim was seeing, thinking, breathing, craving her. Sex. Her nipples hardened. His eyes dropped to her chest, his tongue flickering over his dry lips. He wanted her. Good.

 

"Jim." She bent down, kissed her husband, noting how the stubborn look slid off his face, how his eyes burned up into hers. Yes. He was hers, even now. All she had to do was lead him around by his dick. She didn't have the line to tread that the usurper, Sandburg, had to follow.

 

Carolyn smiled internally even as she deepened the kiss. Sowing that seed of fear in Jim, the fear of being labeled homosexual, was a brilliant stroke even for her. He would never let Sandburg take liberties. Never chance anything with the male Guide that wasn't absolutely able to explain by traditional claiming rituals. She almost felt sorry for the Guide, having to face her, with her own hold on Ellison. The Guide would not come before her. She swore that silently.

 

Jim's anger and determination were fading fast. He made a sound of desire, of need. She'd heard it a thousand times before. This time she was going to answer it. Because it served her purpose. Because she had to maintain a hold on the man or she would lose the Sentinel. And she wasn't about to let that happen.

 

Besides, Jim was a good lover. It was hardly a hardship to let him worship her body. Bring her to her peak over and over. She sighed into his mouth, felt his own throat swallow the sigh. His body was thrumming. Thirty seconds, and he was quivering, probably hard as a rock. Just where she wanted him. Unable to think, or to defy her in his current state. Whatever defiance he and that scruffy Guide of his had planned...it was forgotten. All Jim Ellison wanted was that hot, hungry space between her long, slender legs.

 

She straightened up, stretching subtly, in a way not flaunting or obvious, Jim hated blatant women, but he was a sucker for understated sexuality, it beckoned to his alpha male, lured him like nothing else. Made him a rutting beast. And let him think he was in control. Carolyn shyly licked her lips averting her eyes, demure. Even she, not a Sentinel, could feel the spike in Jim's interest. It flew across the inches separating them as she lifted her gaze, making sure she had a light blush on her cheeks, and met the eyes of the Guide who had stolen her Sentinel. Who wanted to steal her man. Prick.

 

Over my dead body, she thought. Letting him see the glint in her eye.

 

He looked unsure, confused, and a little pained. She almost yelled her glee.

 

"Guide Sandburg. I'm tired, Jim," She swung back to her husband, his attention had not wavering, his nostrils flared to take in her alluring scent. "I think I'll go lie down." She said, keeping her voice tinged with just a faint sweetness. I am a woman, that tone said. He wants me.

 

Glancing with feigned apology towards the immobilized Guide. She saw it in his long lashed, too pretty eyes, he understood her message. He recognized her success. He knew he couldn't fight her this way. Not and keep Jim as his Sentinel. She saw him give in to her, saw him ~know~ Jim was hers first. Saw him swallow as if it hurt him to do it. She hoped he choked on the lump in his throat.

 

Yes, she was in control. Not either of these men who thought they were ahead of her thinking, thought they could outwit her, were anywhere close to her speed. With an inner snort, she smiled at him, letting her eyes drift back to her energized, sexually stimulated husband.

 

She could still do that to the man. Tie him in knots, wring his libido until it dripped blood. She moved, barely a millimeter closer, swaying in her husband's direction. Jim's pupils dilated. He edged away from the Guide. Blair's hand lifting, twitching, wanting to reach out and touch his Sentinel, unable to. She saw it, his frustration, and celebrated, letting her blush intensify. Perfect.

 

Jim was up on his knees leaning over the back of the couch, straining closer to her, she backing enough to keep him reaching, reaching. Hungry. His tongue flickering out, as if he could taste her on the currents of air.

 

Gently she let her fingers wander down Jim's wrist, a tiny tug. He was over the back of the couch and on his feet beside her in an instant, panting, and she ducked her head to hide the smirk of pleasure. Oh, boy, any man could be had, taken and controlled, all a woman had to do was lead him around by his privates. It amazed her men managed to accomplish anything else with this glaring weakness. It made them far too easy to manipulate. Women were the true leaders in the only real way.

 

"You know where the guest room is?" Carolyn asked the Guide who was sitting gaping after them as she led her husband towards the stairs. He nodded, looking confused, uncertain as if he sensed something other than the obvious was happening.

 

It is, you silly boy, and you can't do anything about it. She smiled, cool, in control. The Guide stared, his eyes lowering, taking in Jim's tented crotch, gulping convulsively.

 

Oh, I have your number, she thought. He is mine. And I'll never let you forget it.

 

Fine. Let him guess at what was happening, what she was doing. Hell let him hear it. No matter what the little fairy said, Jim would never listen to Blair, not after she was done with him. She went up the stairs ahead of her husband. Not swaying her hips, not flirting. Letting Jim's mind and senses supply the seduction. He was hoisting himself on his own petard. She was only supplying him the rope to wrap around his balls and hang himself with.

 

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I can't stand it, was Blair's first thought. He went from elation to despair, and Jim didn't notice. Wasn't capable of it, of any action or thought at all. Didn't turn away from the siren beckoning him with her body. The gender that was Jim's preference. Unlike Blair. He wanted to weep. He watched her, his voice caught in his throat, helpless.

 

Jim hadn't said anything. He hadn't told her Blair was staying, if only for one night. Jim hadn't said...he'd just looked at her, and lost his will to say anything. He'd forgotten Blair was even alive. Just one look. That was all it took for Jim's wife to win.

 

Keep cool, Sandburg, he begged himself. Keep cool, don't blow it. You'll lose if you try to force it now. You have to let it go. Let him go. With her. Blair felt his fingernails digging into his palms, slicing crescent grooves into his flesh. Keep it cool. Jim needs this. This is good, she is giving him attention. Jim needs sex. You can't give it to him, because he doesn't want it from you. He wants you as his Guide. He doesn't want you as his spouse. He never will. Accept it. Accept. Accept. Oh hell.

 

Blair closed his eyes. It was a choice of that or watching Ellison scramble over the back of the couch, practically drooling, and walk up the stairs with his wife. Holding hands. Tender, lusting gaze locked onto the shapely, full hips of his wife. Rich and ripe for the plucking.

 

Jim Ellison was going to get some. Blair had hoped for it, it was therapeutic. Like vitamins for a Sentinel. He'd known Jim needed it more than almost anything. Affection. Love. Sex. Heat. Passion. Release. Orgasm. It was more than ghod damned vitamins.

 

Shit. He stood carefully after a long, long time. When sounds drifted down, making it clear that neither Ellison or Plummer had wasted the time it took to close the door to their room. If indeed they had made it that far. Maybe they were on the floor of the landing, rolling on the lush, cream colored carpet Blair had glimpsed.

 

Jim, rising up over his wife, Blair could see it in his mind, the sounds supplying the fodder for his imagination. Erect, straining, that beautiful big cock. Seeking his preferred home, sinking in, deep, wet, warm, slick, wonderful, sliding inside.

 

That noise, that sweet sound of indrawn air, Blair had heard that same sound from his own lady loves. That sound that fills a man with power, with intimate strength. With the over flowing rise of hormones singing wild in a man's ear, firing his blood to pounding insanity. Jim was in her. Inside of her. Blair knew it. Her body held him, he rigid, she soft, moist, yielding, made for him. There was no other act that drew that sound from a woman's throat... 

 

A groan. A sigh. Murmuring voice, soft, a woman's, Carolyn's.

 

Blair's heart clenched, radiating pain throughout his chest. He pressed a hand into his belly trying to contain the gnawing emptiness.

 

A sighing, hitched breath, more sounds. Wetness. He could hear it...or was he manufacturing the noises? The gliding, lubricating sound, the whispers of flesh on flesh. Jim's voice, deep and loving, yet too low to hear the words but one.

 

"Caro...." Jim speaking...his voice carrying a note he'd never used with Blair. Love. Private sounds, private words, Blair knew he should run. Plug his ears and go. But it was his punishment for hoping, for daring to believe that someday, maybe... He bit his lip. His own breath catching in the rent flesh of his heart, tangling with razor wired pain. Oh Ghod.

 

Blair stood next to the couch where he'd sat thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder, drinking from the same bottle as his Sentinel. Their fingers brushing as they passed the bottle back and forth. Little touches he cherished. Jim savoring his flavor, running a surreptitious tongue over the rim of the bottle, while Blair pretended not to see, where Blair's own lips had been. Jim tasting the traces of his spit. Now. Was that same tongue tasting her? Licking over her mouth, delving inside. Kissing her, like he would never think to kiss Blair. Had Jim knelt between her legs and worshiped her sex, another thing Blair would never have...Jim's mouth on him...

 

Jim could lick his taste off a bottle of beer...but he wouldn't kiss Blair, take his taste directly from the source.

 

Blair tilted his head back. Fighting the tears that suddenly threatened to spill over. Jim. Carolyn. Joined. HE had nothing to do with that. Carolyn was Jim's wife. Jim loved her. Blair was Jim's Guide. That is all he could be to Jim. Guide. He couldn't ever reveal his feelings, tell Jim, reveal to him in any way that his feelings went deeper than the utter dedication of a true Guide for his Sentinel.

 

Blair loves Jim, he mocked himself. And it would be a secret, his very own. Forever.

 

Blair marveled at that, losing the battle to keep his tears from falling. Since when did the dedication, the devotion of a Guide for his or her Sentinel sound as if it were so little? Willingness to give up life and family, and career. Willingness to give his body to his Sentinel, to give up the right to refuse. Everything the Sentinel required. That was all to a Guide. But it wasn't love. Blair dashed the moisture from his lashes, the drops, suspended, trembling crystalline, disrupted, smeared, gone. Coating the back of his hand like dishwater, like rain. Like nothing important.

 

He set off for the guest room. Where he couldn't hear them. Couldn't feel the emotions drifting down from above. Couldn't feel how much Ellison wanted this. Wanted his wife. How good her heat felt around him. Where he was safe from the sounds of making love. Where Jim, distracted, couldn't hear his Guide's muffled crying as if his heart was broken.

 

Blair fled. Unable to bear it.


	8. Chapter 8

Blair set his two bulging bags in the smaller room under the stairs, permitting himself a tiny sigh of relief.

 

Jim had appropriated the larger room at the top of the stairs almost instantly, then spent the better part of the morning fussing over his choice, showing a Sentinel's inclination towards claustrophobia when he chose the room...and a Sentinel's drive to protect his Guide as he dithered.

 

Blair smiled at that. It was so purely "Sentinel". The need to reach out with the senses, not be controlled, to be wilder and freer, less constrained...unless your Guide asked it of you to rein yourself in, to focus, and was there to watch over you. Versus the need to control the environment and keep it safe for his Guide.

 

The big conflict had been between Jim's need to be between the door and Blair, or to claim the most open of the bed rooms. Two warring instincts. Blair had waited patiently as Jim paced and prowled, lips pulling back from his sharp teeth every few minutes, as the Sentinel struggled to come to a satisfying decision to take the upstairs room, a long process even after the claiming was perfectly clear to Blair.

 

Jim stood at the upper room's railing, surveying the layout for several minutes. Eying the door and the range between it and Blair's room. His hands tightened on the rail, and for one startled instant Blair feared Jim was going to try a test jump to the floor below, just to see if he would be able to do it should he need to get quickly between Blair and a threat coming into the loft through the entry door. His grip, however relaxed, and no jump came, Blair sagged in relief.

 

Jim continued to prowl up and down the steps while Blair waited patiently next to the large couches. He knew better than to move around and explore until Jim was more settled than this. To move would distract the Sentinel from collecting all the sensory data he wanted, and delay or prevent the final decision.

 

Jim was not happy. He would have rearranged the rooms if he could. He looked over the multiple locks on the front door, tested the heft of the solid wood, the deadbolts, the chain links. He looked over the fire escape. The thick paned windows and their locks. He seemed pleased that the apartment was on the third floor. He walked past Blair, purring, after opening the windows and looking first up and then down. Blair hid his own smile at the homey, warm, feline sound of satisfaction and contentment.

 

After the first half hour, Blair finally sat on the arm of the couch, knowing he was in for perhaps an hour or more of the Sentinel exploring his new territory with growls when Jim wasn't pleased with something he found, or low purrs when he was happy.

 

Blair didn't even want to imagine how long it had taken Jim to adjust to the house he now lived in. That vast building was five times the size of the loft. With all sorts of hidden niches, many doors, enclosed rooms...Blair felt tired just thinking of it. Here Jim could keep Blair in sight from everywhere he went. In the big house...Blair would have been dragged along as Jim learned every nook and cranny, an exhausting endeavor. One thing was certain, the house had not been designed by anyone familiar with Sentinel anxieties or requirements.

 

Bonded Sentinels didn't like to have barriers they had to piggyback their senses to get around. Sentinels didn't like closed doors, closed doors in territory they saw as their own...they dialed up automatically, suspicious. Blair resigned himself to using the bathroom here with the door open until Jim settled in, and certainly, he'd never be able to lock it if Jim was in residence. To do so would surely bring Jim to the door. leaving off what ever he'd been doing to investigate why his Guide wanted a locked door between them.

 

Sentinels had the built in desire for wide open spaces that their senses could expand outward in. Blair looked around. A bonded Guide and Sentinel would be perfect tenants for this kind of place. It would be hellish for an unbonded one though.

 

An unbonded Sentinel liked smaller spaces, less light. Spaces that kept the senses more contained. Sentinels had to find ways to limit their awareness of the world. For the bonded, it was through their Guides, using their genetically compatible Guides as filters for the world of overwhelming sensory input. It was too easy to zone on too much information. Unless your Guide was there, holding your anchor, keeping you from widening your senses and drowning in them, it was best to dial back, way back. Without a Guide, a Sentinel had to compensate.

 

Which in one way...explained Jim's current house. Jim hadn't been bonded to a true Guide. Blair nodded, the light bulb finally turning on. Oh man! He should have seen that house as a major clue! Jim needed to use the tricks of an unbonded Sentinel to cope. Being close to Carolyn gave him none of the benefits Blair expected to see in a healthy, well bonded Sentinel, Jim adjusted for his former "Guide's" weaknesses, for a while it worked.... then, he de-compensated. Fast. Blair had been surprised at how fast Jim had fallen apart according to Simon's chronology. He had thought Simon must have been rattled, and thus exaggerating. But now...he believed Simon's timeline of the events was probably accurate.

 

It also made the three days in the infirmary seem like child's play. Blair shivered. He'd been lucky. If Jim had been alone when he collapsed...if he hadn't been found quickly, he might realistically be dead, a deep zone eventually stopped a Sentinel's breathing...then his heart..., or Jim might be catatonic and still hospitalized. Jim...had been damn lucky. Simon had likely saved his life. Stunned, Blair sat mulling over the rest of what he knew in this new light. He found Jim's quick moving form and followed it with newly aware eyes.

 

Jim was a master at hiding the tricks he used to cope. He functioned well, with hardly a hitch, nothing for even the most observant to see. Then he crashed. Hard. Blair, dumbfounded, sat on the couch as his legs wavered, feeling his knees start to shake. Oh shit. He'd been far too cavalier handling Jim. Jim was fragile. He had thought he was strong, puzzlingly stable, in fact most of the evaluators had professed that conclusion in the file Blair read.

 

Truth was...Jim had done as well as he had because of his first Guide. Benjamin Sarris must have been one hell of a Guide. Blair ached for Jim having lost such a match. The tale of their pairing, even after it's rocky start, was inspiring. Diligent and dedicated, Sarris had taught Jim everything he could, every coping mechanism a Sentinel needed to hide his vulnerabilities. They'd learned together, newly paired Sentinel and Guide, developing a powerful bond. Jim fell back on the memories of that time often, using it to deal with situations that arose even now. Blair wished fervently he could meet and speak with Sarris. What secrets into Jim's personality and his Sentinel gifts had died with the Guide?

 

Yeah, put that in your pipe and smoke it, Sandburg, Blair told himself. The reason Jim is doing as well as he is, isn't because you are the perfect Guide for him...it is, at least partly, because Ben Sarris was. Ben Sarris when he died, left Jim prepared to deal with the world. With a whole bag of tricks.

 

Tricks like Jim had used last night. Blair shook that image out of his mind. Shook the memory of Jim, in the early hours of the night, crawling jarringly into his bed, shocking Blair awake, Jim shivering, tense, making sounds of distress. Wrapping himself, whimpering with pain, around Blair, holding his head in his hands. Still smelling of....her. Not taking the time to wash before finding Blair. Blair bit down hard on the jealousy that had spiked him through the gut.

 

Blair rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses. He was as recovered from the encounter of last night as he could hope to be this soon after, but he hadn't let himself forget what happened. He took the time to drill it into his brain, just so it would remain fresh, re-wording it so his psyche couldn't change the memory to something more to it's liking, more palatable. Blair wouldn't allow himself to lie, not even to himself.

 

Jim was married to Carolyn. Jim loved Carolyn. Carolyn could take Jim away, anytime she twitched her hips. It didn't matter if it was bad for Jim. Jim probably even knew she wasn't good for him. He still loved her. She was still his wife. And Blair...Blair would have to find a way to keep Jim together and high functioning without getting rid of her. If she left..it couldn't be Blair who was responsible in Jim's eyes. That would be a disaster.

 

Blair had to work around Carolyn to be the best Guide for Jim. He had to be there, as a Guide, even if Jim came to him reeking of her and of sex. He couldn't refuse him, or turn it into a contest that would place the onus on his Sentinel to chose between the two of them. Blair couldn't be jealous. To do so violated his oath as a Guide, the oath to put the Sentinel's needs first, last, always.

 

He prayed Carolyn wouldn't force a choice on Jim either, that she might remember that much of her own oath. But he had no confidence in that hope. She would make it about Blair vs Carolyn and count each victory no matter the cost. Blair for his part, could only hope to be there for Jim when it happened. When she tore him apart trying to make him chose her over his Guide.

 

He had to be Jim's Guide. As he'd been last night. When he held Jim, coached him through his dials, getting back Jim's equilibrium, wondering how Carolyn had messed up something as simple and natural as sex...and put Jim in the state he was in now.

 

Blair, had washed Jim, head to foot, in an effort to reduce the arousal via his sense of smell. If Blair, not a Sentinel by any stretch, was overwhelmed by the scent of pheromones and sex...then Jim must be going mad. Close to frothing. Jim put the truth to that thought when he lifted his hand, surprisingly fine boned for all it's strength, and viciously itched at himself. Blair soothed him, tugging the offending hand away before Jim could scrape his skin raw, and washed him a second time with the mild herbal soap.

 

Of course he'd found the scratches on Jim's back, the nail marks in his buttocks. Carolyn's marks. Blair blanked the fury from his mind, some primitive part of him furious that she had dared so mark ~his~ Sentinel, he washed Jim, concerned the wounds needed to be scrupulously clean to prevent infection. Only letting himself focus on that as he smeared on the gentle antibiotic gel.

 

Theoretically Blair's next step should be to offer to stand by the pair of them while they had sex. To watch over them, to bring the sex to a more positive conclusion, to police the encounter. But he was realistic in his calculation of the chances of that happening. An ice cube's chance in hell.

 

Wife vs Guide. It happened far too often. Or husband vs Guide, somewhat more rarely since female Sentinels were rarer in general. Frequently enough that in the Guide prep classes there were two whole semesters on how to handle the confrontations professionally. How not to make it about winning or losing, how not to fight the spouse, how not to put pressure on the Sentinel. How to surrender his own desires. How not to fall in love. How to let the Sentinel have what was required or desired. Durable as Sentinels were, they were also fragile in many ways. No point in a Guide crowing his or her victory if the Sentinel paid a high price.

 

Blair drew in a deep breath. The air in the loft smelled fresh, clean, no longer musty inside. A Sentinel support team had cleaned every corner of the space to make it tolerable to Jim. Now, Jim had no objection to Blair living here. He still roamed the place, head down, eyes intent, fingers touching, examining, tongue tasting spots from here to there to assure himself of the safety of the loft for his Guide.

 

Blair waited as patiently as he could for Jim to be done with his thorough canvassing of the place. He watched and amused himself with thinking a few things through. Observing the man who he was now fully responsible for. Jim prowled the loft. Top to bottom. All of it, every inch. Even the brand new, freshly laundered linens, inspected, chewed, replaced, tucked, precisely squared corners.

 

Then the nod. And Blair was allowed get up off the couch and to enter further. To explore it himself. To put his bags into the downstairs room. Which held a brand new futon sleeper. New pillows. New sheets. A desk and chair. Computer. White noise generators, to keep Jim from being disturbed if Blair was working on something late. He wouldn't see much of the downstairs room when Jim was here. Just a guess. Jim seemed to like to have his Guide close. And the fact that Blair's room was so close to the door...Blair new he'd end up wedged between Jim and the wall upstairs pretty often. Where Jim would be able to keep an eye on him, and a hand. To wrap his strong arms around Blair and hold him.

 

Of course, they hadn't had time, or perhaps on Jim's part, the inclination, to talk about the frequency Jim would be in residence here. Blair didn't want to push. But having Jim living with his shrew of a wife, who couldn't even... Blair cut his thoughts off at the knees. None of that. Jim wanted her. Blair would arrange his life to permit that. He would not give in to jealousies, or to making Jim chose. Blair was Jim's Guide. He would care for his Sentinel to the very best of his ability.

 

He exited the smaller room and went back into the living area of the loft. The two huge couches were angled together around a large TV screen. Off to one side, a kitchen with a cooking island. Not new, the furniture, but scrupulously clean. Windows lit up one entire wall, further creating the illusion of wide open space. Blair smiled. That too screamed "Sentinel" to him. The high ceiling, the windows, the airy openness of the architecture. No enclosing walls except for the room under the stairs and the bathroom. The bathroom had a door. The small room under the stairs did not. Blair wasn't surprised. 

 

He stepped into the bathroom. Not huge, but comfortably large. They could both be in here without feeling overly crowded. The shower was larger than the one he had used with Jim at the Infirmary. Impressive. He returned to the living room. Looked up. The bedroom upstairs was wide open, no shield between it and the rest of the apartment, relying on it's height above the rest of the area for privacy. A skylight shone sun down onto the wide, white covered bed.

 

White. Blair shuddered. Looking around. Too much white. He would change that. Bit by bit. Make the place more personal, add touches of Blair and Jim. Make this a home rather than a place for Jim to merely meet with his Guide and claim him. Glancing around, listening to Jim upstairs filling drawers and moving around, Blair felt odd. He frowned. Looked around again. Like...a mistress. Hidden away. By a married man who murmured promises when he was buried deep in succulent flesh...yet went about the rest of the time...married to someone else. Committed to someone else. Which was exactly how a Guide should not feel. A guide was not a mistress of either gender. A Guide was not a sexual partner, unless the Guide was also a spouse.

 

Damn it! Blair was furious with himself. He couldn't keep this up. He couldn't keep playing the outraged and wronged lover. That wasn't what he was. It wasn't Jim's fault Blair was falling in love. Blair had only himself to blame. Jim had made him no promises.


	9. Chapter 9

Simon sighed, riffling through the medical release paperwork, doing the requisite check of all the i's dotted and t's crossed. Paperwork had become a bigger and even more unwelcome part of his job when he made the move from Detective to Captain. But he was happy enough to find this stack of forms on his desk when he came in this morning. It was good news. Now he had only one more major task left for the day...getting Plummer on her way to Forensics...out of his, and his Sentinel's hair. If it took much longer he was going to lose his own hair, come to think of it, maybe she was the explanation for Jim's receding hairline.

 

Ellison was back at work, his new Guide at his side. Sandburg's signature was all over the papers in front of Simon. Blair Jacob Sandburg. PhD. Sentinel Specialist. Along with a few MDs he was responsible for monitoring Jim from here on out. Most of the MDs had signed off to Blair. The kid had to be very good at his job for them to feel comfortable doing that. Simon was impressed. Sentinel Specialists were a very dedicated group, insular, protective of their charges. And Sandburg was about the youngest person he'd seen garner this degree of trust from a group of them.

 

Simon's fingertips wandered over the faint grooves of the inked name. Blair Jacob... his fingers stroked the name. He could nearly see the imprint of where Blair had rested his hand. And wafting up from the paper was the lightest scent of the other man, noticeable only to a Sentinel, the natural oils from Blair's skin. Simon suppressed a shiver. His senses were alive as they so rarely were any more, energized by the Guide's presence.

 

All week he'd been muted, his head filled with cotton. Unable to adjust to loud noises or strong smells, he'd dialled down hard. Food tasted terrible. Water...well he'd had to force himself to drink and stay hydrated, even the bottled stuff tasted like chemicals. Muffled was better than cacophonous...but not by much. He felt as if he was surrounded by a cloudy plastic shell. Like things weren't real, echoes of reality, no more, like he stood apart from it all. He hated feeling like that. But it was safer, he wasn't going to zone that way.

 

He'd applied for a new Guide. He'd finally done it, again. Man, woman, dog, cat, mouse....he didn't care who or what he found that was compatible. He needed a Guide. Having Blair around had triggered his own need. If he didn't want to end up in a possibly bloody struggle with Ellison over Blair, Simon was going to have to find someone for himself.

 

The last thing he wanted was to end up fighting with Jim. And not just because Jim was Special Forces trained and deadly. But because when Sentinels fought over a Guide...it became no holds barred, ruthless. It would mean the end of their long friendship, and perhaps death for one of them. Simon wasn't going to let that happen.

 

He grimaced. He didn't really want anyone else. He wanted what he couldn't have. He wanted Sandburg. His skin ached with hunger for the other man. It was rapidly getting to the point where he might lose control. So, he had gone to the Sentinel Division and asked for a match. Asked them to try again. Discussed his case with a concerned Case Worker, new to him. Told her all about his reactions to some Guides. His near fatal allergies. She'd listened intently. Been encouraging. And maybe... Well he was afraid to do more than hope.

 

Now that Blair was around, less than a dozen feet away in fact....everything was crystal clear. He'd felt it when he walked into the building this morning. Clarity. Peace. Calm. Blair was here. His gaze stole guiltily over towards the vibrant young man standing next to Jim's desk, his ratty jeans and hand stitched vest standing out in sharp contrast to the other Detectives clothing. Simon felt a smile curling the corners of his mouth. All you had to do was look at the way Jim dressed, hyper-conservative and then look at Blair...Simon smiled for several blissful seconds. Then remembered where he was...and what he'd been thinking of before.

 

He watched as Jim settled a chair next to his own and urged Blair to sit, draping his long arm across the back of the chair. Practically embracing Blair, sticking his nose into Blair's curls for a quick if discrete sniff. It was good to see Jim being that open and physically affectionate. It had been far too long that the other Sentinel had withdrawn, touching only his wife, and that hardly ever in public.

 

That withdrawal scared Simon. He feared for Jim when he saw what was happening. Now...he could honestly see improvement. Jim looked good. He was glad Blair was bringing Jim back. And if that meant Simon was going to have to be a spectator, seeing Jim with Blair, feeling the ache of want in his chest.... Well, who could blame him? If Blair was his...

 

Simon squeezed his fist shut until it hurt, tendons creaking, skin paling over straining knuckles. Thinking like that... he shook his head. Forced himself to look beyond the curly head bent low, Jim leaning in, their heads close, almost cheek to cheek. If Jim just turned his head a fraction that way, and if Blair only lifted his chin...they would...could kiss. Simon pressed his hand over his gut. Oh Ghod. What he wouldn't give to kiss Blair Sandburg. That mouth....

 

A sharp sound, the edge of a file being slammed onto the top of a desk, distracted Simon. He glanced towards the sound, seeing the furious face of Carolyn Plummer. The expression lasted less than a second, smoothing out to nothingness. But Simon had seen it. Carolyn was up to no good. He had to get her out of his bullpen. Fast.

 

Detective Carolyn Plummer was still squaring away her cases, passing them on to the remaining detectives. It was taking longer than it should for her to get it done. She was stalling. The very idea of the hyper-efficient woman deliberately stalling...Simon was surprised. And it increased his concern. What was she up to?

 

Jim would keep some of the active cases, but not a full load until Sandburg was in full swing. No need to put extra stress on the newly functioning pair. Better to ease in. Especially given Blair was not a cop. H and Rafe were up to maybe taking on one or two more cases. And Megan and Ilya could take on one more. Barnes with her hapless Guide du Jour, perhaps two. Geoffrey Gilbert and Miles Radley, the tall, ebony Sentinel and his slender, pale as milk Guide who were almost as new to Major Crimes as Sandburg were already capped out.

 

Blair wasn't a cop. Sure. But he was smart. He would do. It wasn't a Sentinel Guide thing, it was a competence thing. Simon was sure of it. Blair could work with Jim. He glanced out into the bullpen, again. They were there, Sandburg and Ellison. Jim pointing and talking, his head nodding as if he was making a point, Blair was listening, gaze intent, huge blue eyes a deep as the sea. Eyes you could fall into. Eyes Simon could fall into.

 

Every few minutes Jim raised his head and scanned the area, Simon saw the glint of his ice blue gaze. Assuring his Guide was safe. Behind him, Carolyn was doing her own observing, her face tight, unhappy, angry. Simon didn't like that look. The sooner she was out of the unit the better. Having her here, this close to Jim and to Blair was asking for trouble.

 

Simon could almost see her point. She was, in a way, losing her husband. For months she'd been both Guide and wife. Though a sorry Guide...she hadn't had to share Jim. Now that was changing. A Sentinel wasn't like any other man. A Sentinel had a Guide. The Guide came first.

 

Simon knew how hard it was for a woman to accept that she came second, or even third in her husband's life. Joan hadn't been able to handle it any better than Carolyn was doing now. Joan left him when it became clear his Guide was first, Daryl, his rebellious, energetic son second, and she was third.

 

For Simon, his child had come as close as it was possible to being as important as his Guide. Joan...he was sorry, but she hadn't. He hoped she was happier now. He harbored no resentment towards her. She was a good mother to their son. She had tried to be a good wife, and was by all other standards, but being married to a Sentinel...

 

Watching, Simon felt the knife enter his gut. He turned his face away, unable to keep the grimace off of it. He drew in a breath, let it out. And again. Until he felt the awful band loosen from around his chest.

 

The knock at the door startled him, intent as he was on ridding himself of the anguish, the need to have Blair close. The desire he couldn't let free. It would wreck him, and it would hurt Jim. His friend.

 

He scowled over at the door, not ready to face what the job would hurl at him yet...only to see a worried Blair entering. Jim behind him, hovering, a cautious, reserved, yet concerned look on the classically handsome face. Jim automatically scanned the small room as he entered. Blair was here, Simon gulped.

 

Simon's tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. When he didn't object, Blair slipped further into the office, making right for him. Simon was caught like a fly on a web, as the small Guide advanced.

 

So beautiful. His eyes were fixed on Blair's tumbled curls, pulled back into a pony tail, but so lush they spilled down his back as if unwilling to be contained by one little rubber band.

 

So warm. Simon could feel Blair's body heat as the Guide neared. He started to shake.

 

So tantalizing, his scent wafting ahead of his advance. Simon's mouth watered. He wanted to grab the smaller man. Taste him. Hold him. He shook his head. No. He had to...

 

And Blair's hands were on him. Touching him. Jim close behind, not touching yet. Letting Blair do his thing, but the blue eyes were alert, attentive, not missing a touch, a sound, a shiver. Jim moved in closer, closer, pressing himself along Blair's back, just as he had in the loft. His hands came up to rest on Blair's forearms, gripping right above Blair's wrists. Simon waited for Jim to take his Guide back, to pull Blair away. He prepared himself to let go, to surrender the young man he had no right to. But instead of pulling Blair back, Jim just stood there, holding his Guide, pressed to him, yet making no effort to draw Blair from Simon.

 

Simon was momentarily distracted by a noise from the bullpen. A crash, swearing coming in through the cracked door. He looked up, raising his head from where he had turned his cheek to lay atop Blair's fragrant curls. Jim shifted, and Simon thought, this is it, he is going to take him. His Guide, not mine. He looked out, desperate for a distraction.

 

Carolyn was coming for the door to his office, her face a mask of outrage. Jim shifted, his hands lifting up off of Blair's arms, taking up a position of defense, the conflict on his face plain. Defend the Guide...and alienate his wife, or...risk Blair being harmed, and palliate his wife.....

 

Simon groaned. Blair held him tighter, trusting his Sentinel to take care of the interruption, while Blair took care of Simon.

 

H saved them all by heading the irate detective off. Rafe came up rapidly as soon as he picked up on what his Sentinel was doing. He put a tentative hand on her arm. Carolyn had aways liked Rafe. He was handsome, friendly, and paid attention to her. She was like many women, flattered by a beautiful man's attention. She stumbled to a stop. Simon held his breath, but she didn't shake his hand off. She let him turn her around, so she wasn't seeing her husband in a clinch. He was talking to her rapidly in an undertone Simon didn't even bother to try to hear. H hovered nearby, he wouldn't actually touch her if he didn't have to. None of the Sentinels would. Just one more huge clue that she wasn't really a Guide.

 

Simon closed his eyes on the scene outside his office. Simon was with Blair. Blair was touching him.

 

Carolyn had never understood this sort of thing. She had never offered any other Sentinel this. A clinch which she would have understood wasn't a clinch...if she was a true Guide. As a spouse....it was too intimate for her to handle, to see. Blair being accepted where she was rejected. Even though she had never, not once reached out to Simon or any of the other Sentinels. Except Barnes. Simon had thought that was a sisterhood thing. But, maybe....

 

Simon shuddered when he thought of the female Detective Sentinel. Connor, the only other female Sentinel he'd worked closely with, was fine, well adjusted, working with her Guide, Ilya Frank, a thin, older man who was so serious Simon worried about him, wondered if he ever smiled, if he knew how, the complete opposite of the cheerful Australian, who was almost always draped over him. Ilya was good for her. Simon finally saw that after weeks of worry.

 

Alexandra Barnes.... well she was another kettle of fish all together. Moody. Difficult. Brilliant. She went through loaner Guides like a bag of candy, a new one every few months. Men, women. It didn't matter. They all left eventually. Looking somewhat worse for the wear. She ran them ragged. Refused their interventions, then pouted and acted out until they forced her to accept their touch. Which she basked in. Or...she struck out at them, mostly verbally. Though Simon had seen a few leave after she struck them physically. He wondered at that. How did a Sentinel justify striking a Guide?


	10. Chapter 10

  
Author's notes: In a world where Sentinels are known, Jim Ellison is still not getting his needs met.  


* * *

"Well." Simon sat back in his chair, allowing himself to feel a very welcome sense of accomplishment and revel in the smallest measure of satisfaction. Folding his hands comfortably over his flat belly, he stretched out his long, long legs, crossing them at the ankle.

 

He'd done it. He couldn't hold back the grin for another minute, his white teeth shining in his dark face. Yes!

 

After twelve grueling hours of delicate negotiation and diplomacy, Carolyn Plummer was history. All her cases wrapped up and handed on, verbal reports as well as written notes completed. He had essentially stood over her, and resorted to keeping both Blair and Jim out of the division, on any errand he could make up on the spur of the moment, keeping them away all day, to accomplish the task of pushing Plummer on.

 

Carolyn was gone. At least from the Major Crimes Sentinel Division. No, he would not give in to the urge to dance and hoot while in his glass walled office. Even with the bullpen all but empty, Megan Connor and her Guide taking the overnight calls tonight. Aside from those two, he was the only other person in the area. He would also not pump a fist into the air and howl with glee. Though Megan would get a kick out of it, her was sure. He grinned wider.

 

He would however, allow himself a congratulatory cup of coffee, his third of the day, with sugar and full fat cream this time. Simon rose and put on a fresh pot. Hazelnut. He sniffed the aroma appreciatively.

 

Normally he wouldn't dream about coffee after dinnertime, but tomorrow was a day off, rare though those were, and he had a stack of DVDs with his name on it at home. He would watch a few, then have a brandy, and trot off to bed. No more worries until Monday. Then he'd dig into the next problem. Because there were always new ones waiting....

 

He was so happy about Plummer's transfer. And into the best possible Department, too. The fit was perfect. She was good at details. She was thorough, the word anal came to mind. And Forensics...well it would be right up her tight-assed alley. He stood over the brewing pot, still grinning like a Cheshire cat.

 

Forensics was a Department completely devoid of Sentinels. The only department that was. All evidence logged in had to be run and confirmed by mundane lab techs. No Sentinels allowed. Legal mumbo-jumbo, laws requiring Sentinel-collected evidence be scrutinized by non-Sentinel personnel was the perfect arrangement for Simon Bank's problem Detective. No Sentinels within her reach. No Sentinels at risk.

 

Simon shuddered. Some other poor bastard might catch Carolyn's eye, but he'd done his best to see it wouldn't happen. Some Sentinel not aware of what Jim had gone through. Ripe for her snare.

 

It was going to take another few months to have her removed from the Guide rolls. But, by ghod, he was going to see it done. For the safety of his brother and sister Sentinels. And because he felt just a little vindictive, too. She had gotten away with too much. While he knew she had her uses, and Jim still loved her, he also knew, deep in his heart it would be better if Jim sort of fell out of love with the barracuda.

 

Jim would be better off moving on and away from his wife. Forgetting he was emphatically heterosexual, and embracing Blair. Simon didn't harbor a single doubt on that front. And he was going to start letting Jim know starting Monday. Subtly letting the stubborn Sentinel know what a treasure he had in his grasp. If Blair was Simon's, if Simon had even a chance at the curly haired Guide...he'd be down on one knee so fast he'd probably skin his knuckles doing it.

 

There were laws allowing Sentinels to marry their Guides, regardless of gender and yet declaring their sexuality to be diametrically opposite to the gender of their Guide spouse. Simon thought that while he was well aware Jim wouldn't admit he might be gay, he just possibly would consider Blair as a spouse if...if he divorced Carolyn, and if, big one here, if he could publicly declare he wasn't gay.

 

Simon sighed. A damn can of worms, that. In his own opinion there was far too much fuss over sexuality and gender and all that. He would go to work in a tutu if it would bring his own, male Guide back. He would shriek to the heavens from the roof of the Cascade PD that he was a fairy, gay, homosexual, a ponce, light in the loafers...any thing at all, to have Johnny....or any Guide at all back in his home, in his arms, in his life.

 

Guide gender, when it came right down to it, Simon thought it didn't matter at all. Nature made Sentinels compatible with certain Guides. The one thing that never seemed to factor into the equation was gender. To Mother Nature, it was obvious gender didn't matter a hoot. Simon Banks, after years of happiness followed by great, aching loss, decided Mother Nature was right.

 

He settled back at his desk with a full, steaming mug of fresh-brewed coffee, rife with cream, sugar...heaven, oh, heaven. He inhaled. Saliva instantly flowed, filling his mouth as he bent his head, placing his lips on the mug's heated rim. He closed his eyes. He sipped. He licked his lips, sucking the last molecules of flavor off his mouth. Jesus. He groaned. Wonderful

 

Jim was safe at work able to do his job without looking over his shoulder, unlikely to run into his wife. Simon pictured Blair bouncing energetically beside him juggling his fewer University classes and the newer work with Jim at the PD, the department and Jim's schedule coming first in his life. Jim, at last was first in a Guide's priorities. Jim was first. As he should be.

 

Simon was pleased.

 

Now...all that remained was squaring away Jim's home life. Where he lived with ~the woman~. His wife. Who refused to acknowledge Jim's new and legitimate Guide. At home, of course there were no work-place laws to protect Jim. Simon couldn't argue that Carolyn was not the wife for him, not safe, dangerous in fact...and have an intervention in the big house. Jim was an adult. So was Carolyn and so was Blair. When adult Sentinels and Guides were involved, all private issues remained

private.

 

Carolyn who wouldn't allow Blair to keep a room at the huge house. Though they could all three live there and never run into each other. Hell, they could communicate through the housekeeper and cook Carolyn insisted on keeping employed six days a week. Pretty rich for two detectives.

 

Jim never had to cook a single meal, couldn't even if he wanted to, Simon had witnessed the woman chase Jim out of his own kitchen with a spatula. The elderly cook even packed Jim and Carolyn lunches when they couldn't get out of the house fast enough. Simon smirked, remembering the last time Jim came in, carrying his bulging brown paper bag, grumbling, with a flush riding his cheeks.

 

H was there in a flash, sniffing the air, eyes zeroing in on the bag, which Simon's own nose told him contained a chicken salad sandwich with mayo, sweet pickle, tomatoes lettuce and slivered onions and well as Chocolate Chip cookies...with macadamia nuts...still warm. H had relieved Jim of the bag in record time. All the Sentinels in the department crowding around to taste their pilfered bit of the sandwiches and cookies. Even Simon had managed to snag half of one of the three chicken salad sandwiches. When it came to Jim's lunches, the Guides were lucky to get even a nibble. And they never lasted until lunch.

 

Of course Carolyn's lunches went unmolested, none of the Sentinels, not even H, willing to brave her chilling demeanor for a taste of the home-made gourmet salads she brought.

 

Simon snarled, enjoying the opportunity to bare his teeth after having kept them covered most of the day, and at great effort, too. It was a fantasy, for sure, but he'd really, really like to let loose on Plummer, tell her what he really thought, and what he'd like to do. She should be prosecuted. She had tortured her husband and Sentinel. Whether by omission or deliberately...Simon hardly cared. What Jim had gone through...

 

Simon shook his head regretfully. Thinking those kinds of thoughts wasn't helping anyone. Nor was it solving problems. What he needed to do was finish this divine cup of joe, and get himself on home. Where he would park himself in front of the tube and do absolutely nothing but watch old movies on DVD until bedtime. Just him and John Wayne at The Alamo. Or the Son's of Katie Elder. Or Spencer Tracy and Bad Day at Black Rock. One of his favorites.

 

He swirled the milky brew and took a last swallow. Hell with finishing it. He would break into that gallon of Mocha Almond Fudge when he got home. Get his coffee and caffeine fix that way. He smiled and reached for his coat, shrugging into it. Grabbing his keys he made a beeline for his office door. No stopping him now.

 

The phone trilled just as he was locking the door from the outside. He stood, indecisive for a few pregnant moments, before years of training told, and he twisted the key with a sigh, and pushed back into the room.

 

"Banks." He half growled into the receiver.

 

"Captain Simon Banks?" The voice was smooth, middle aged, he'd guess, a woman. No one he recognized right off. His brow furrowed.

 

"Yes this is he. How can I help you ma'am?" His eyes strayed to the clock on the wall ticking just past eight in the evening. No harm in being polite. He'd be gone ten seconds after he hung up the phone.

 

"My name is Arielle Jackson. I am calling from the Sentinel Resource Division." She paused. "Sir, Captain Banks, I think we've found a Guide for you."

 

Simon sat in his chair with a thump. He tried to speak, but no sound came out. He was sweating, he noticed absently. Too hot, suddenly. He tore at his coat, fighting free of the long, enveloping folds. His throat worked, trying to get up enough saliva in his suddenly arid mouth to swallow.

 

"Captain?" Her voice growing more and more concerned. "Are you there?"

 

Simon grunted. "Yes." He managed. "I'm here." His voice was a full octave higher than it usually was. He tugged at his collar, loosening his tie. A Guide. For him.


	11. Chapter 11

  
Author's notes: In a world where Sentinels are known, Jim Ellison is still not getting his needs met.  


* * *

Simon adjusted his tie for the tenth time, shrugging his shoulders to settle his coat on them. He licked his lips. Wishing fervently for a mirror to check his appearance. He wanted to look his best for this. He wanted to give a good first impression. Meeting his Guide for the first time was too important not to.

 

He was just waiting for the door to open and the chaperon to enter with his prospective Guide.

 

He was as nervous as he could ever remember being. Every bit as nervous as he'd been the night he proposed to Joan. The day he met Johnny was no comparison, he had literally stumbled into the other man, nearly knocking Johnny off of his feet, and it was like they'd both been hit by lightning. Boom! No doubt for either of them, they belonged together. Not so much stress there.

 

Now though...he'd actually gone through the matchmaking service. So this was like...a blind date. He'd never been comfortable with blind dates. Always disasters. He had a queasy feeling starting in the pit of his stomach.

 

He fidgeted in his chair. It had taken him less than ten minutes to get from the PD to the Guide Center, tie askew, face flushed, and heart trip hammering. He'd been waiting...he checked his watch...at least ten more minutes. Check in consisted of giving his name to the receptionist, a task taking no more than fifteen seconds. She sent him here. He'd been cooling his heels ever since.

 

What on earth was taking so long? Was the Guide sneaking a look at him? Was he too tall? Or maybe too old? Or did the Guide want someone who wasn't a cop? What kind of work could he do if he wasn't a cop? If his new Guide couldn't bear him being a cop? Couldn't work with him at the station? What else could Simon do? He had at least ten, maybe fifteen more years before he could comfortably retire.

 

What if the Guide was an activist? A Peace-nik? Anti-gun? Anti-police? Oh ghod, what if his Guide was even now rejecting him, before Simon had any chance to meet him or her? Before they could talk?

 

Simon knew he was willing to make any change at all. He would do anything. Anything. But would he have the opportunity to tell his Guide? He grasped his hands tightly, trying to force them to be still. Damn it, his nerves were shot.

 

He sprang to his feet. Paced the spacious room, avoiding the soft, over stuffed chairs arranged in neat groupings.

 

Shit! He ground to a halt. What if the Guide was too old? How would Simon face knowing he was going to lose her again, that his Guide would die before he did, again. Like Jim's Guides. Sarris, Incacha, Pendergrast. He shuddered. Three Guide's lost, Simon didn't count Carolyn...how did Jim stand it?

 

Ghod! Worse yet...what if the Guide was too young? How could he...he shook that vision violently out of his head. No. No. NO. Don't think like that. Don't think like that at all.

 

But of course his brain stole back to the question, again and again. How young? Ten years younger than himself, a piece of cake...twenty...doable. They wouldn't have much in common...but Simon worked with men and women who were thirty and even younger every day. So, twenty years, twenty-five..doable. He sighed, alarmed at how shaky he sounded even to himself.

 

What about thirty years younger? A twenty year old? He blinked. He couldn't even conceive of that. He tried to picture himself with a Guide that young. Younger than his own son. Daryl was in college now. Guides were legal to bond all the way down to fifteen in carefully controlled circumstances. Emergencies. Simon bent over fast, getting his head as low to the ground as he could before he fell.

 

NO. No way. He shook his head violently. He must look absolutely mad, he decided, ass in the air, head between his knees, huffing away like a freight train. Nuts, if his Guide was taking a peek from behind one of the glass framed observation windows. One way glass, even for a Sentinel, Simon couldn't tell if anyone was behind the panes. So his Guide might be there, watching Simon slowly go crazy, driving himself crazy with all his worries, all his anxieties, all his doubts.

 

What was to say it wouldn't go perfectly? Was ten, fifteen minutes long to wait after all? How could they have expected him to get here so fast. They had no way of knowing he'd use his lights and sirens, did they? Once getting in his car...no way he wasn't going to use every means at his disposal to get here fast. He was just...too fast. He shouldn't try to read anything into the wait.

 

Many Guides weren't comfortable with meeting one on one with their Sentinels for the first time. Thus the Chaperons were available. Was it a good thing that the Guide had asked for a chaperoned meeting? Or very bad? How to tell?

 

Simon paced back in the other direction, making for the chair where he'd draped his coat over the back of the chair the greeter had shown him to. He checked his watch again. Stared. Impossible. It was only two minutes gone by since his last look. Not even a quarter to nine yet. He spun on his heel and headed in the opposite direction.

 

He had to calm down. Had to stay cool. His Guide would take one look at him and freak. A huge, intimidating, sweating...hell, frothing....cop...what Guide wouldn't run? One like Carolyn Plummer. One like her. Simon stopped dead in his tracks.

 

Oh, Christ. No way. He had to stop thinking like this. He was working himself up into a lather. OK. Stop. Take a breath. In. Out. In. Out. He wiped his damp palms on his slacks. Just slow down. He just needed more air. He was going to be fine. As long as the Guide wasn't too old. Or too young. Or...Carolyn Plummer or her male equivalent.

 

He nearly jumped out of his skin when his cell phone rang. He fumbled at this pocket. Swearing, he finally was able to extricate the slender bit of technology.

 

"Banks!" He yelled into the mouthpiece. He was sweating something fierce.

 

"Simon? What the hell is wrong? Blair started to go nuts about thirty minutes ago. Now he is pacing all over the loft. Jittery as all get out. I was about to drag him to the ER but he won't go. He swears something is wrong with you." Jim's voice was an irritated growl, tense, the worry warring with annoyance. Angry with Simon because Blair was scared...Simon understood that. Sure he did. Too well.

 

"Jim? Blair? What the hell..." Simon swallowed. No. He was not a man who swore. He was not. He drew in a breath. "I am fine...." He began, his voice far too quavering to be convincing. Jim cut him off.

 

"I can hear your heart racing over the phone." Jim stated, his tone flat, dangerous. "Where are you? We are coming to get you. Sit down. Take a breath. We are leaving right now. Where are you? I need an address. Breathe Simon."

 

"Jim, I'm fine....." Simon tried again. A scuffling sound, a yell, cut off, Jim's turn to swear, and Blair's voice replaced Jim's.

 

"Simon?" Blair's voice shook with anxiety. "Simon? Simon!?"

 

"Oh, my Ghod! Jim! He can't talk! Simon!" Jim snarling in background. Simon tried to reassure them. A dignified squeak was all he could manage. Well...an undignified, but quiet, squeak. "Simon. Sit down. Lay down. On your side. Can you hear me?" Blair was frantic. Simon squeaked soothingly.

 

"Simon! Sit down! Jim! how are we gong to find him?" Simon heard the car doors to Jim's truck slam. He knew that sound, he'd recognize it anywhere....Jim's one ostentatiously, rebelliously male indulgence, the one time he thumbed his nose at Carolyn's tastes and control. "Is there anyone there with you? Any one who can help you?"

 

Simon grunted, then squeaked again, helpfully.

 

"Simon!" Blair ordered. "Sit down."

 

Simon Banks sat down. Unfortunately there was no chair under him. He sat on the floor. It was a long way down. Then he turned on his side. Lay there listening to the squeal of tires as Jim drove. Listened to Blair's voice.

 

Jim would find him. If anyone could track him in a city the size of Cascade...it was Ellison. Once upon a time, when Sarris was his Guide, Jim had been famous for tracking. Anything, anytime, anywhere. When it came to tracking, Ellison was a ghod. He had the stats to prove it. Simon was sure finding a cigar chewing, profusely sweating, very familiar Sentinel would prove no challenge at all.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Simon Banks lay on his bed in the Sentinel wing of the hospital. He hated hospitals. OK maybe not as much as Ellison hated them, but darn close. He avoided hosptials and doctors in general. Which he was being told, was part of his "problem".

 

A heart attack. He could hardly say the words to himself. A small one. How did a doctor get off saying that to a patient. Small and heart attack did not belong in the same sentence.

 

And the sentences that followed were not any more comforting. Stress. Cholesterol. High blood pressure. African American. Sentinel without a Guide. Life expectancy. Cigars...the Sentinel Specialist was outraged. With a lot of blah, blah, blah in between those words.

 

Then, diuretics, beta-blockers, clot busters, aspirin...finally a word Simon recognized. And more blah, blah, blah. Blair was right there. Grim faced. Jim looking almost as worried. In fact, Simon was sure ~he~ was the only stone face in the room.

 

At the Center, Jim and the paramedics had arrived almost in the same instant, Jim, once he had figured out where Simon was, called 911 using Blair's cellphone. Simon deliberately refused to think how he dialed while driving on two tires most of the way.

 

Blair was bouncing anxiously behind Jim, then he was suddenly next to Simon, holding his hand. Patting him, distracting him as the paramedic put in an IV. Simon was having all kinds of trouble with his dials. It felt like the man was cutting his arm off with a dull butter knife. Blair soothed him. Talked him through the procedure as the paramedic called in a report to the Sentinel Center at Cascade General.

 

They loaded him onto a stretcher, strained to lift him, he wasn't fat, he thought with great offence, just big, tall, and muscular. Trundled him out of the door. He weighed two fifty, two sixty at the most, not so much for a man who was six-six, but Jim had had to help the

paramedics get the stretcher lifted up, and into the back of the ambulance.

 

Something drew his eyes back toward the Center as he was disappearing into the ambulance. He frowned, dazed, everything feeling unreal. Until he met the eyes of the girl standing next to a competent but concerned looking woman. The girl staring at him with huge, frightened eyes. Twenty, maybe a few years older, Simon took a stab at guessing the Guide's age. She held a wrapped bundle to her chest. The scent of heat, and warm milk tickled his nose...she was nursing a new born.

 

And she...was she....his Guide?


	12. Chapter 12

Blair was beaming. His eyes shining with pleasure, his curls wild and unfettered around his face and shoulders, for once free of the band that usually held it away from his expressive features. Except, Simon recalled with absolute clarity, when Jim and Blair were bonding.

 

That time, when Blair was on his back, Jim's hands holding him, Jim's body moving over him, Blair's curls spilling back off his face, hanging over the edge of the table, so tempting. Simon's fingers meshed in his hair, Simon bending down, inhaling the Guide's scent..... rich, herbal, male, weaving it's magic all around him.

 

Simon blinked, retreating fast from the memory. His fingers curled into his palms, making huge fists. fighting not to give in to the urge to sink into Blair's profusion of mahogany locks again. He could see it in his mind's eye, his hands itched to lift, to pull Blair close to hold him....taste him, lick a wet path down his neck....

 

Simon thought he'd never seen anything quite so beautiful as the smiling Blair standing on his porch.

 

Except maybe the young woman who stood next to Blair, his arm around her. She had both hands on the push bar of a stroller. Her hair was darker than Blair's, mostly...except for the fashionable streaks of golden-blond highlights. Her large eyes a lighter shade than Blair's, a blue-hazel, setting off her luscious cafe au lait skin.

 

She was perhaps a shade heavy for current fashion, her body rounded, full, womanly for one so young, which to Simon's eye was perfect, none of those skinny biddies for him, being that skinny just wasn't healthy. She looked at him shyly, as if she wasn't sure how to act, or what to think and say. Simon didn't blame her for her uncertainty. The last time she'd seen him he was having a heart attack on the carpet in front of her.

 

She followed the beaming Blair inside. Blair having agreed to play chaperon this time. Simon took her hand gently in his big paws. She looked up at him from a height difference of at least a foot. He stared into her eyes, his tongue in a knot, inhaling her fragrance. He felt the tingle begin is his hands, traveling up his arms, his mouth going dry, then his stomach all fluttery.

 

"Serena, this is Simon Banks." Blair was saying in the background as the young woman gazed into Simon's dark brown eyes. Simon barely heard the words. He was mesmerized. She smelled of a faint flowery mix, not overwhelming, light. And he still smelled the other scent. The milk, motherhood smell, warm and welcoming. His heart lurched, remembering Joan and Daryl, when his son was newly born.

 

A long time ago. A long time ago, but the memory of the scent enfolded him. The memory of family and home. He took a step nearer her, and she turned moving away from the stroller, gazing upwards, her full lips parting. Simon stroked a hand down her face. She turned into the touch, her lashes lowering, her chin lifting.

 

Oh. Simon swallowed hard. ~Guide~. The ends of his fingers stole over her mouth, touched her so white teeth. Felt the moist tip of her tongue tasting him. Simon nearly moaned, or maybe he did, out loud. He heard Blair speaking in the background. And only because it was Blair did he know anyone was speaking at all. Even so, the words were beyond him.

 

"Simon, this is Serena...and neither of you is listening to me..." Blair ended with a wry chuckle. "Not that I don't understand...I mean...if you wanted me to hold a conversation when I am with Jim and needing to bond....I'll just go over here..."

 

Simon tuned him out. Click. That easy. His Guide was in front of him. His Guide.

 

Blair grinned. This was looking good. Just what Simon needed, and by all appearances, what Serena needed, too. There was an eager, almost disbelieving hunger in her eyes as they fastened on Simon's face. She moved her arms up and held onto the large man fiercely. Blair could see her shiver as Simon sniffed delicately at her ear. Her body arched into her Sentinel's.

 

Blair turned his eyes on to the child in the stroller. Who was watching him with the frank interest of all children. He smiled warmly at the bundled boy. He'd been introduced during the ride over in his Corvair.

 

"Don't mind me." Blair said. "Me and Mordecai will just amuse ourselves over here. Want a cookie, big guy?" He asked the drooling baby, who was contentedly sucking on one wringing wet fist. Blair wheeled the stroller into the kitchen. He searched the kitchen, finding at last a box of Nilla Wafers. He sniffed one. Smiling at himself. He was no Sentinel, but they smelled alright. He broke one, not stale. OK. Good enough for the baby. He held out the cookie.

 

Mordecai extended both arms in a jerky, somewhat uncoordinated movement, his round eyes fixed on the treat.

 

Blair gave him the cookie.

 

"You are named for an angel." He told the child. Mordecai ignored him, gumming at the cookie, then just letting it sit in his mouth. "Your mother still nurses you, doesn't she? You are a really lucky little boy. Many women don't nurse that long. But there are important nutrients and it will help strengthen your immune system. None of which interests you now...." Blair continued as the child threw the bits of cookie onto the floor and shared a toothless grimace with him.

 

Blair wiped up the gooey mess, while Mordecai pounded his fists on the tray of his stroller.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Simon startled uncomfortably when he saw the old silver-grey Toyota in the driveway of his home. Well, that was certainly unexpected.

 

Next to him in the front seat of his own Lincoln Continental, seatbelt fastened as he'd insisted it must be before he pulled out into traffic, was his Guide, Serena Watson. In the back seat, in a carseat, was her young son, Cai. The poor child's first name, unfortunately for him, was Mordecai. Simon had fussed over the child's less distressing nickname to such an extent, Serena had also started calling the tiny boy Cai.

 

The only one who seemed not to find the nickname appealing was Blair. Who called the small child "Mordecai" with a tone of indulgent affection worthy of a big brother...or even a parent. Also spending time telling the child of the origin of his name and the traditions behind it as he bounced the boy on his knee, Blair babbling every bit as much as the mesmerized child.

 

Trust Blair, Simon thought, to find such a name a boon and not realize how hard it was going to be on the kid growing up. Jim, showing far more sense than his partner, was as wary of the name as Simon himself and was quick to do as Simon had done and adopt the diminutive.

 

Serena peered out at the house and it's unexpected vehicle with interest. The movement sending out waves of her intoxicating Guide scent. Waste not want not, Simon thought, inhaling. His Guide smell good. So Good.

 

She had been a revelation to Simon. Not as young as he'd first feared, though still horrifically young compared to his own fifty-one years. But she was adaptable, and happy, her personality nearly as bubbly and positive as Blair's. And she was independent, not letting him take over her entire life. Though his instincts screamed at him to try. He wanted to enfold her in fluffy, soft blankets, keep her safe and warm. so no horror would ever touch her.

 

She was, however, just as he'd feared, an unwed mother. With a very disinterested former boyfriend, who made no effort to call or visit, unless he was coming up short on the rent at the first of the month. Then there was talk of coming to see his son. Talk that Simon quickly, and firmly squelched in a private, late night conversation with the sponger.

 

Simon Banks, police Captain, was not going to be the lazy jerk's Mother Lode. The guy needed money...he could find a job. He also discreetly had the man's records looked up. Nothing. he felt a certain disappointment that he wouldn't be arresting the man for anything soon. Couldn't arrest him for being a jerk. Simon sighed his regret. Too bad.

 

He and Serena were only just getting used to each other. Except for the bonding, she slept in her own room with little Cai. Simon had made an unexpected find, Daryl's old crib in the attic of the house. A good dusting off, new bedding, and it was perfect for the little boy.

 

Living together, in Simon's house was a good arrangement for both her and Simon. He was adjusting as best he could to having her around. She spent the time he was at work with her friends. She hadn't yet wanted to brave the precinct. She'd only met Blair, Jim and Rafe so far.

 

Simon liked having her around the house more than it bothered him not to have the privacy any longer. He surrendered the larger downstairs bathroom to her, showering in the upstairs one, though the cubicle was a tight fit for such a large man.

 

And her son. Simon was getting used to handling a baby, again. The cooing, the drooling, the horror of dirty diapers. All worthwhile when the tiny being smiled delightedly up at him. All he needed was another wrench in the works. And, he stared at the car, willing it to vanish, here it was.

 

Daryl was home. And Simon was not prepared, he tried to recall if it was a school holiday and this was a weekend visit, or more. He was hoping for a short stay, nothing like a week. He had not yet told either his ex-wife Joan or Daryl, his son, of his new Guide.

 

Somehow Simon knew Joan would take one look at her, see how young she was, and disapprove. Wincing he imagined it as if it were happening now. Joan would protest, probably loudly and in front of Serena. Who was no push over. A fight, verbal, Simon hoped, would likely ensue. So, prudently, he hadn't mentioned Serena yet. waiting for them, Serena and Cai, to be more sure of their welcome, more confident in their place with him.

 

Simon wasn't sure how Daryl would view things. Daryl had a way of surprising him with some very liberal views, salted with remarkable conservative ones, courtesy , not doubt, of his mother. Simon sighed, quietly.

 

"What's wrong?" Serena asked as he pulled into the driveway.

 

"My son is home. Daryl." Simon didn't beat around the bush. He never lied to Guides, and most especially not his own.

 

"And that is a bad thing?" She asked as she opened the back seat to retrieve Mordecai, who was kicking happily. "The two of you fighting? Not talking? He here for money?" She asked curiously. Her bright eyes alight with curiosity.

 

Simon regarded her, recalling her history. Her ex, Mordecai's father. She had a bad experience of men. This could prove a good thing. A chance for her to figure out not all young men were total heels. He almost thought "assholes" but he was trying to clean up his speech and therefore his mind, for the youngster's benefit. If you didn't think bad words...you couldn't say them in front of one of the human sponges of information that children were.

 

"No. Nothing like that. I love Daryl, it isn't that." Simon sighed again as he gathered the grocery bags from the trunk of the car. "I was just hoping we'd have more time alone together." He and his Guide were getting along fine, but they weren't quite used to each other yet, still bumping into each other unexpectedly. Even being a Sentinel, Simon sometimes found himself startled to walk around a corner and find her there. Having Daryl around could add to the slight uneasiness.

 

If Simon let it. He squared his shoulders. Which he would not. He dragged the countless bags into the house, following his Guide as she carried her squirming son inside.


	13. Chapter 13

Simon kissed Serena gently, handing her oversized purse to her with a grunt. What the hell was in the thing? She was wearing stretchy tights, a sweatshirt over shorts and a tank top, and tennis shoes, looking mighty fine.

 

No, that wasn't exactly right...

 

Athletic shoes, they were called now. Not tennis shoes like they had been when Simon was growing up. Or Keds. He'd worn the canvas Keds, basic black and rubber white, until they fell off his feet. These shoes were anything but Keds. And they were about one hundred dollars more expensive than the durable shoes of his day, too.

 

A nasty shock, the price, but he'd quietly paid up, knowing most of the money Serena had saved was used providing for her son's monthly expenses. The price of the oddly high tech diapers alone was enough to stop any tirade he might have considered. And formula! He was grateful she was still breast feeding part time.

 

Besides, this new exercise kick seemed very important to her. She worried about the kind of shape she was in, finding herself too heavy, worrying, biting her lip adorably while looking at her delectable rump in the full length mirror. Simon bit down hard on his tongue at that. The last few times he'd tried to tell her how beautiful she was, she'd

only glared at him suspiciously.

 

He sighed inwardly and handed her the keys to his car. Wincing as he did. She was worthy of Jim's reputation for wild driving. Without the Sentinel reflexes or vision to keep her out of trouble. Two scrapes in less than three months, a fender bender and backing into someone's car in the grocery parking lot. The brochure he'd left on defensive

driving on the coffee table, ignored, but for the moisture rings that showed it had been used for a coaster.

 

He said a little prayer for her safety every time he handed over the car keys. Soon he'd get her a little, tough car, something more maneuverable, but with less horsepower, and the best crash protection available, front and side airbags.... Before he lost all of his hair.

 

He'd already gone out and purchased a new carseat for the baby, so impenetrable it could have been a space capsule. With the best guarantee Simon could find. Blair had happily researched carseats on the net for him when he caught Simon pounding away with determined frustration, caught in some internet dead zone.

 

But at least Cai was staying home today. Safe in Simon's loving, protective care. Or...at least where Simon could hear him, and with big brother Blair eagerly babysitting.

 

"Thanks, Blair." Serena turned towards the other Guide who was holding Mordecai. "I hate leaving him with strangers at the gym and I know Simon has paperwork he needs to get done. I really appreciate you looking after him."

 

She turned back to Simon, her eyes twinkling with mischief. "Thanks, big bear." She cooed at him. Rising up on tiptoe and kissing his chin. Then she was off down the front walk and into the car. Simon left behind blushing furiously, Blair struggling to keep a straight face.

 

There was also a strange look in his eye, almost pensive as he turned away, hidden under the toothy grin. Simon wondered if he'd imagined it...but he didn't think he had. There had been something, something there that Blair tried to hide as soon as he saw Simon looking. So, not all giggles today, Simon thought as he climbed the stairs to his office. He would have to ask, see if Blair wanted to talk later. Unless it was resolved by then, whatever it was. 

 

"I've got some great herbal tea." Blair called up the stairs a little while later, as Simon was flipping through yet another stack of papers. "Would you like some?"

 

Simon grimaced at the thought, opening his mouth to ask about coffee, then snapped it shut. Damn. He was supposed to be off of caffeine. If Blair discovered he sometimes snuck half a cup....there would be hell to pay. Might as well keep the Guide off the hunt by accepting some of his steeped leaves and twigs. Simon called down his reluctant

agreement.

 

Blair showed up a few minutes later, Mordecai strapped to his front in an odd contraption Simon remembered starting to notice a few years back. The baby was able to see and reach out, arms and legs kicking without impediment, as Blair moved. Simon thought he looked a little like a turtle stuck on his back. Grabbing at things with sticky fingers.

 

"Whoops!" Blair exclaimed, attempting to rescue Simon's work. "Not yours, big guy. That is daddy's." He managed to pry it loose and smooth the corner of the paper. Simon fought down the flush of pleasure hearing Blair call him Cai's Daddy stirred. Blair chatted on. "Sorry, Simon. Kids this age like to grab at anything they come close to. Sort of a spatial, curiosity thing. They sort of remind me of mini-Sentinels, putting everything in their mouths, touching everything...."

 

Simon flushed red. Because a picture flashed in his mind...a picture of where he'd seen Jim's mouth...and where his own had very recently been.

 

"I remember." Simon said, looking askance at the oddly green brew Blair had put on the edge of his desk, concentrating like hell on it. It smelled...OK. So, not that bad. Sort of green, and fresh. Hot. He licked his lips. He might actually live through this experiment.

 

"I'll leave you two to get acquainted." Blair said in a semi-strangled tone, gesturing at the cup. Simon glared at him. "Just try it, Simon. Jim drinks it."

 

Simon shot him a look of pure disbelief. Blair grinned. "Really, I'm not kidding. He likes it."

 

Simon sipped as he listened to Blair thunder down the stairs, Mordecai laughing as much as a child his age could laugh, a gurgling screen. Simon pictured the happy, sloppy grin the boy was already capable of, and he had to smile himself. He rolled the brew around in his mouth, over his tongue. It tasted like sweet broccoli, not sugary, but clean, like it was cleansing. Not bad. Not too intense. Mild. He sipped a bit more. Huh. As long as it didn't turn out to be a laxative, he wasn't OK with it.

 

So, Ellison drank this stuff? Hmmm.

 

He heard the door downstairs open and he smelled the distinct, sweaty heat of his exercised Guide. He loved the smell of her sweat. He loved how the drops gathered on her creamy, brown skin, beading on her lip, on the upper curves of her breasts. He loved it when she let him lick them away. The flavor exploding across his tongue.

 

He heard her greet Blair, then Mordecai. The three of them sounding so happy. Simon felt a perfect contentment. As if they were all his family, surrounding him. Healthy, happy, and safe. In his house, the home that he'd made for them, provided for them.

 

Simon stood, unable to resist the urge to see them as well as hear them. His ears were no longer giving him trouble, and he'd been able to discard his glasses since bonding with Serena. He didn't miss them one whit. In fact, gazing into the mirror in the morning, he allowed himself the temporary vanity, that for his age he was still a reasonably good looking man.

 

Silently he moved over to the rail and looked down. Serena had taken her son from Blair's turtle thing, and was cuddling him, her hand cupped over the back of his precious skull. Simon's heart swelled at the sight. He loved seeing how much his Guide cared for her son.

 

Blair was sitting nearby, on the couch, smiling as he watched them. Simon found himself caught up in the way the light glittered in Blair's hair. Once again pulled back off of his face to keep Cai's eager fingers out of it. Simon knew he hadn't made a sound, but Blair looked up at him almost the same instant he stepped into view.

 

It was electric, the spark that shot through Simon at the expression in Blair's eyes. Both sadness and a kind of joy. Simon started down the stairs. Serena turned to glance at him, smiling, her cheek pressed to Cai's. One set of eyes a little browner than the other. Simon had figured out a while ago the absent father was a very white man. Probably, inferring from Cai's coloring, light skinned and with pale blue eyes. Simon found himself watching every blue eyed man who looked even remotely like the one grainy picture Serena had of the jerk. A photograph of herself, years ago, with a thin young man. Tanned, the two of them, she much, much darker than he.

 

They'd been friends or more for a while it seemed. Simon guessing their break up may have had something to do with the responsibility of having a child. Not attractive to the young man, being tied down to a job and a family. Well his loss. Simon was pretty close to loving them both as if they were his own.

 

She rose to her feet as he reached the living room. He kissed her cheek, then Cai's. The baby tasted of maple syrup and apple cinnamon. Oatmeal, Simon guessed. Blair liked to make oatmeal from scratch, Simon was quite aware of that, having been fed the sticky mess many times himself.

 

Serena took Cai and went to shower. Simon watched her go, hungrily.

 

Swinging back around at the tiny gust of a sigh that came from Blair, he caught that look on Blair's face again, longing. That was it. Impulsively Simon leaned over and kissed the top of Blair's head. Blair went still as marble for a fraction of an instant, then melted into Simon's bulk. Simon enfolded him in his arms, hugging him. It amazed him every time, how well Blair fit into his embrace.

 

Guide. He liked being close to Blair. He felt the tendrils of need rising.

 

Simon nearly freaked at that sudden, unbidden thought. No. Refocus.

 

"Alright, Sandburg. You going to tell me what is on your mind?" Simon put an arm around him, cradling him gently, to his side.

 

"It's nothing." Blair objected. Snuffling into Simon's shoulder.

 

"Blair, it obviously isn't "nothing". Is it Carolyn, has she...?" Simon was ready for the next salvo from the woman. It had been far to simple and uncomplicated of a transition. She hadn't even, to his knowledge, forbidden Jim from spending part of every night with Blair at the loft apartment. Jim was looking mighty good.

 

"No. It isn't that. I mean she is always doing something. Little stuff. But no...I can't blame her..." Blair was doing it again, Simon thought, seeing all sides.

 

"For what?" Simon was perfectly ready to blame Jim's wife. Blair was far too forgiving. He ~wanted~ to blame her...for something. And he certainly wasn't ready to relax because she'd not stirred up any major trouble for a few months.

 

"Jim." Blair wouldn't meet Simon's eye.

 

"Sandburg...." Simon said warningly, prompting the younger man. If something was wrong with Jim, he wanted to know about it. Secrets and Sentinels were a bad mix.

 

"It's just, that...it's nice how you kiss her." Blair whispered into Simon's wide chest. And it was back that faint longing. That whiff of desire. Simon's hands tightened. The sex, no-sex thing. He had been right. Carolyn's interfering hands were all over this.

 

Simon stared down at Blair, tilting Blair's head back to permit direct eye contact between them. "Tell me." He ordered.

 

"Jim. Doesn't like to kiss. Me, I imean. He doesn't kiss me. He kisses Carolyn. But..."

 

Simon felt annoyance fill him right up to the top of his head. It was Carolyn's fault. This most certainly was. He'd bet she was picking away at Ellison, reminding him of the homosexual risks he was taking every time she could. The bitch. And Blair was paying for it.

 

Aching. Instead of feeling cherished. Simon growled.


	14. Chapter 14

Jim knocked, two quick raps on the heavy front door to Simon's house. Extending his hearing he heard multiple heartbeats inside the home. He was searching for one in particular. And he found it only a few yards away. Blair's of course, that one heartbeat predominated his awareness, and Simon's was easy enough to identify quite close to Blair's. And Simon's Guide's, and of course the baby, though those were a fraction further off. Deeper into the structure. He heard the sounds of someone in the bath, Mordecai, splashing enthusiastically.

 

Simon and Blair were in the living room, just inside the door. Jim didn't wait for one of them to open up, he turned the knob and prepared to step in. He lifted his nose, inhaling, drawing in the scent of his Guide, so faint this far out with a closed door between them.

 

Then he sniffed again. Sharp the scent of distress, of sadness...could he be wrong? He drew in more air, this time through his mouth. Tasting as well as smelling. No. He wasn't wrong. Blair was upset. Jim pushed the door open, eyes zeroing in toward the heartbeats.

 

The first thing he saw was Simon, teeth bared, head lifted, facing Jim as he entered the door, prepared to defend his territory if Jim proved hostile. But why, when Simon could not have failed to know it was Jim coming in?

 

The second thing he saw was Blair, crumpled up against Banks' chest, hands clinging to the arms of Simon's striped shirt. In Simon's arms, Simon cradling him tenderly, yet with an edge of protectiveness that to Jim was unmistakable. As if Blair was Simon's to protect.

 

Everything went still. As if the very molecules stopped their vibration, as if Jim took snapshot of the scene. Simon...Blair...Jim...frozen in a still life, unmoving, even the dust motes not falling, swirling, absolutely still.

 

Blair curled into Simon's lap. The sound, slow, unreal, drawn out in Jim's perception, his sniffles. His slow, slurred murmurs of apology. And begging Simon. Blair saying "no". Simon shaking his head, refusing to honor Blair's refusal.

 

Jim felt instant anger, rage and possessiveness overwhelming him, gutting his basic human senses. He bared his own teeth, lips curling back. Blair leaned back, eyes finding his Sentinel. Blair's distress spiked, the odor of shock and near panic breaking Jim's progressive cycling up to violence, to claiming back his Guide from the arms of another Sentinel. Blair was rubbing his hands across his face, trying to hide his tears.

 

The air moved, the sunlight flickered, sounds carried and life went on, normal speed. Blair inhalation hitched on a quiet sob.

 

Why? Why would Blair cry freely in front of Simon, but hide it from him? From his own Sentinel?

 

It took less than a second for Jim to make it across the room and land on his knees in front of Blair. Reaching out, a sense of deep, cellular-level urgency wringing his guts. He touched Blair, avoiding Simon's hands, forcing himself not to knock Simon's hold off of Jim's Guide.

 

Calm. Calm. Calm. What was wrong with Blair?

 

"What's wrong?" He asked, tightly, urgently, demanding. His voice was closer to a bark, aggressive, clipped, than to speech. "What has happened?"

 

His hands were already mapping Blair, delving into Blair's hair, under his shirt, popping buttons as he went, tilting back the Guide's head, examining, minutely the man's face, tearing off his shoes, the zipper to his jeans, short work. Not finding any physical injuries. Physically, Blair was intact. No scent of blood, or bruising. No sex...no arousal. No fear.

 

Blair's tears were on Jim's hands. Jim licked them, sadness spreading across Jim's tongue, then he touched Blair's face, his thumbs running over his Guide's moist lashes. Bending nearer, licking his eyelids dry. Pressing his lips to the red, swollen lids, drying them, soothing them with his mouth.

 

His Guide was upset. Why? Why was Blair upset? Who had upset him? Simon? Jim let out a long, low growl, spreading his knees wider on the rug, winding his arms more securely around Blair.

 

Jim dragged his Guide out of Simon's arms and into his own, sitting on the floor, positioning himself to hold Blair on his lap. Blair went, pliant, as Jim's grip tightened, his clothes half on, half off. Jim's nose burrowed into his neck, sniffing at the scent of distress. Tongue lapping up the tendon that was tight, stretched, across Blair's Adam's apple, up under his chin, hours since Blair had shaved, the faint bristles of beard rough against Jim's tongue.

 

Everything was not all right. Even though Jim could find no injuries. Something was still wrong. Jim's tugged against Simon's stubborn hold.

 

Simon let Blair go reluctantly. He growled back at Jim. Deep, rumbling. Warning. Jim's eyes narrowed. Blair's hands fumbled at Jim's shoulders. He wriggled, putting himself between the two Sentinels who were measuring each other, assessing position and advantage.

 

"No. Jim. Simon. Calm down. Calm down now." Blair's voice was a little hoarse. He sniffled. But the tone of his voice carried the authority of Guide in it. Jim felt his hackles lower, he saw Simon's tension ease just enough. Sweet balm, Blair's voice, both Sentinels had to obey the voice. Blair patted Simon's foot, squeezed it, then took his hand away.

 

Simon frowned at the fading touch. He wanted Blair to be touching him. He wanted Blair to be in his arms. He wanted Blair to be happy. Simon lifted his eyes to Jim's. His friend. His brother Sentinel. Making Blair cry. Acting stupid. His lip twitched, baring a flash of gleaming white teeth, then eased at Blair's sharp, stressed inhalation.

 

Simon leaned back and away, wary, but not threatening, not responding to Jim's aggression any longer. Watching Jim hold Blair.

 

Stupid Sentinel, stupid Jim. How was this any different than a kiss? It wasn't. Jim was fighting a battle that wasn't worth winning, that made no sense at all. Simon watched Jim licking Blair's tears. Giving in to the primitive need to taste. To kiss was to taste....how was it any different...licking Blair, or kissing him? Claiming him...or making love? Simon shook his head, folding his fingers into fists to prevent them from being buried in Blair's thick hair.

 

"Blair." Jim hunched around his Guide, turning his attention away from the oddly staring Simon and towards his Guide. Simon's grim expression was making him nervous. Jim needed to know what was happening and he needed to know now. "Tell me. Please. What is wrong?"

 

"Oh, Jim, it really isn't anything." Blair sniffled. He laughed, a little sadly. "Man, would you look at me." He scrubbed at his face, blotting his nose. Simon extended a box of tissues from the corner table. Blair took several. Blew his nose.

 

"Well I sure as hell can." Simon growled, dropping the box onto the coffee table, where it hit with a little bang. Blair's eyes grew larger, he shook his head, hair flying, brushing like curls of silk thread against Jim's neck and chin, across his lips...smelling of Blair. Jim mouthed the strands, tasted them. Then drew his concentration back to more urgent things. What did Blair not want his to know? Not want Simon to tell him?

 

Jim looked up expectantly, a bit warily, surprised as hell to see accusation in his friend's dark eyes. "Simon?" He asked in confusion. He patted at his squirming Guide. Blair and Simon? Did Blair want Simon more than Blair wanted Jim? Jim made sound, as if his chest was being crushed, as if a dozen men were standing on it, forcing out all his oxygen, all his air. Loss.

 

"NO." Blair clutched Jim in panic. "Simon you can't!"

 

It would make things worse. Jim would believe what Carolyn was saying, that Blair wanted to draw him into a homosexual relationship. Make him gay. Change him.

 

All it would take was Simon revealing to Jim Blair was weeping over Jim's not wanting to kiss him. Just that one little factoid, and Jim would be long gone. History. Out of Blair's reach forever. Where Blair couldn't see him, touch him, talk to him...or be held by him. Where he couldn't heal him, or keep him from being hurt. Or Guide him.

 

And only Carolyn would be there to pick up the pieces. With her shark's smile and deadly heart. Carolyn who's tender care would kill Jim. Blair couldn't bear that.

 

Blair simply had to find a way to deal with it on his own. Not whine to Jim about kisses and affection, not allow the twinge of envy, of pain to rule him when he saw Simon with Serena. When he saw how Simon loved her.

 

"Simon, don't. Please." Blair whispered again, seeing the frustration growing on the big man's face.

 

"You aren't wrong Blair." Simon said, crossly. "If you were my Guide...."

 

Jim had no hope of stopping the growl that rose into his throat and exited through gritted teeth. He began to shift to put Blair out from between himself and Simon. Simon saw him and scowled. Blair's fingers clawed at Jim's shoulders, keeping himself exactly where he was, a bulwark between the two larger, bristling men.

 

"I am not taking your Guide, Ellison." He spat out. "For ghod's sake, stop it with the snarling." He rubbed his forehead. "You are giving me a headache." The sour smell of pain, aggression, dominance..fear. Simon turned his dark eyes onto Blair, huddled against his Sentinel.

 

"And you....no secrets. I know they've taught you that. Secrets are not good between Sentinel and Guide. Take my word for it Sandburg. Talk about it. Don't go down the same path you just saved him from, one block over." Simon stood and stalked from the room, back rigid.

 

"What the..."Jim stared after Simon in confusion.

 

Blair was thinking wildly. Was Simon right? Did he have the right to keep his feelings from Jim? Even when he knew Jim would interpret them incorrectly? Even when he knew the knowledge would hurt his Sentinel?

 

"Blair." It was Jim, speaking to him in a hard, stern tone he'd never used on Blair. Blair looked up into the icy blue eyes.

 

"Spill it, Sandburg." Jim said.


	15. Chapter 15

Blair seemed to flush under Jim's stare, then went pale.

 

Jim watched it happen from inches away. The dilation, then constriction of the tiny blood vessels under his Guide's skin. The spreading flush, then the flow away from the skin, leaving Blair almost white...

 

Blair met his eyes directly, searching them and Jim's face for some hint, some clue that would tell him what to do. How to handle this without destroying everything....

 

He honestly couldn't decide. Blurt it out... Laugh it off.... Lie...No. He couldn't do that. He couldn't...could he?

 

He hated lying to Jim. But he feared telling him the truth. What would the truth cost him? Everything? Was it worth having anything if it was bought with lies?

 

Was he justified, omitting the truth when it might cost him so much? Might cost him his Sentinel? Might cost his Sentinel his life if Jim ran, giving up Blair's guidance. Care that he needed.

 

Blair was waffling. He knew Simon was right. Lies...lies were never good, never acceptable. There had to be truth between Sentinel and Guide...or Blair was no better than Carolyn. No better than the woman who had claimed to be a Guide, who had talked a desperate, hurting man into believing she was his Guide. Into trusting her with everything he was, and then, casually, thoroughly betraying him and everything he stood for.

 

Now Blair was trying to rationalize doing something similar. Lying to Jim. Manipulating him, "for his own good". Wrong. He couldn't do it. It was wrong.

 

He raised his eyes up from where he'd been contemplating the hollow at the base of Jim's throat. He let his facial expression become open. Vulnerable. He stopped hiding. He let the feeling that filled his heart fill his eyes. He let Jim see him, what he held inside. All of it. Sadness. Longing. Need. Caring. Love. Desire.

 

Jim looked startled. His Guide was looking at him...strangely, more intimately than he had ever before. The look had such weight, such emotion behind it, Jim swallowed. He felt the heat travel under his skin, his body reacting to his Guide's clearly transmitted feeling. He felt himself go hard, his body surging forward, screaming at him to claim what was being offered, what was his to take.

 

Sandburg was...Jim's hand tightened, his arms banding around the smaller man. He ground his hips into Blair's ass, Using his hands to press his Guide down, hard. Blair whimpered at the force of it, his head tipping back, rolling on Jim's shoulder. Jim growled, showing his teeth. He knew..or was afraid he knew, what was coming. His heartbeat sped up. His hands made dents into Blair's flesh, on the edge of hurting. Willing Blair not to do it, not to say it. To let it remain unsaid.

 

"Aw, Christ." Ellison whispered, his hips moving without his permission. He was raw, scraped down to the bone. Understanding what the emotion was in his Guide's dark blue eyes.. "Aw, Blair."

 

Blair gripped Jim's collar. "I'm sorry." He was. He let his legs fall around Jim's hips. Let Jim grind into him even as the Sentinel frowned at him. It was completely unprofessional of him, Blair berated himself. But he wanted so badly. He wanted Jim. He snaked his arms up, around Jim's shoulders. Rolled his head in to face Jim's damp throat. The Sentinel was sweating, panting, growling in an undervoice. A subvocal rumble that echoed through Blair's chest. Tightening his skin, his nipples, prickles of heat.

 

The Sentinel was the one who had the right to choose if being in love was going to be part of the bond. The Guide had to surrender that choice. The Guide couldn't let his own feelings force the Sentinel in a direction the Sentinel didn't want.

 

Blair let the sob fill him, and escape. Muffled, but not enough to keep it from Jim. Jim's hand fisted in his hair, dragged his face into view, icy, blue eyes cutting through all if it, pinning Blair. Skewering him, flaying him open under the scrutiny that missed nothing. Blair saw the frost as it filled Jim's eyes. As Jim pushed up at Blair's jeans covered ass, hurting, harsh.

 

It was payback for Blair's arrogance. For thinking he was so good, better than the majority of his classmates who were slower than he was on picking up clues, on understanding what the Sentinel in the classroom needed, wanted and had to have. Blair had been so good at it, at the understanding part. His professors had passed him with glowing recommendations. He'd believed what they said. Became overconfident.

 

And this was where it took him. His incompetence, his lack of professionalism was damaging a fragile Sentinel. Jim knew Blair was in the wrong. Blair knew...

 

"She was right. I can't fucking believe it. She was right about you." Jim was saying, and the light in his eye...betrayal. Blair saw it. Clear as day. Jim knew what it meant. He knew Blair had failed him. He knew where to lay the blame. He rose up over Blair, tipping him onto his back, ungentle, forcing him onto the carpeted floor on his back.

 

"Jim." Blair tried to speak, Jim's hand, twisted in his hair, stretching his neck into a long, unshielded line, skin, muscle, bone, all there, all unprotected, a fraction away from a snap, a break. His voice shook, his mind was blank. There were no words to heal this. Nothing. His Sentinel was....

 

"I didn't want to believe it. That you were doing this in hopes of fucking me. I thought she was jealous, and wrong. But she wasn't. My ghod." Jim's snarl was delivered directly into the curve of Blair's ear. The warm current of breath a pleasure against his tautened skin, his goose-pimpled neck.

 

Blair felt the easing of the arms from around him. Jim was leaving him. He had no right to try and stop him. He let his legs fall away, let Jim pull away. Saw him long and hard and ready for the claim that Blair wasn't going to have, wasn't going to get, maybe never again.

 

"I am so sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen. I just...when we spent the three days in the infirmary...all that time, it happened, and I couldn't stop it. I....can't help it. I love you." Blair delivered his wrenching speech, each word splintered glass, slicing his pain afresh, renewing it, until it filled him, welling up from the lacerations of his undesired love. Jim was up, standing over him by now.

 

"A fifth Guide." Jim said, his tone was flat, emotionless, drained. "There has to be something wrong with me. No Sentinel fucks up this badly. No Sentinel goes through five Guides. What the hell is wrong with me?" He stood there, his arousal tenting his pants, unacknowledged.

 

"There have been cases in the record of up to ten Guides..." Blair blurted out in his nervousness before he could stop himself. Not the thing to say now. Oh, no, the thing ~not~ to say. The look in Jim's eyes was bleak. Oh, shit. Blair lifted himself up, out of his

wallowing self pity, making it to his elbows as Jim spoke.

 

"Not this Sentinel. I won't go through this again. This is it. No more." There was nothing, no feeling, nothing to grasp. The words rang hollow. Bleak. As if Jim had made his decision. The tonelessness chilled Blair, jolted him up off the floor.

 

Blair scrambled after Jim as the other man headed for the door. He managed to grab Jim's belt.

 

The note of finality...Sentinels were twice as likely as the general population to commit suicide. Unbonded Sentinels making up almost 100% of those stats. If Jim was talking about what Blair thought he was....Jim considered himself unbonded again. And free to die, to end this cycle of pain and loss. He was seeing nothing else for himself.

 

"No. Jim. Stop." Blair was desperate. He clung to the stronger man's belt and waistband. He wouldn't let go. Jim tried to pry his fingers off.

 

"Let go, Sandburg. I'm not worth it."

 

"Jim. please."

 

"No."

 

"I love you. You know it now. It doesn't have to change anything. How I feel doesn't make you gay. Ellison! Stop it now! There is no way I'm letting you out of that door like this." The rug burns were painful on the top of Blair's feet and left ankle. His knees were sore from being bashed as he was dragged along. But he wouldn't let go.

 

Jim stopped his fight to get free. He stared at Blair. Stupid. That actually made sense. He looked through the statement, picking it apart. Looking for the trick. Just because Blair was gay it didn't mean that Jim was. Jim wasn't. He knew what he was. And Blair feeling one way didn't change that at all.

 

Blair's hair was tumbled, tangled about his face. Jim smelled bruises and blood. Blair was injured. He nodded. Slowly. Gaze narrowing.

 

"You are hurt." He said. Very gently he took hold of his Guide's hands. Blair's fingers were hooks, frozen into place by pure desperation. Jim straightened them, finger by finger. They were cold in his own. He went down onto the floor next to Blair. Took those cold, rigid fingers into his mouth, warming them, softening them. Blair staring at him.

 

Blair fighting with every bit of strength he had to hold Jim down with the weight of his body, wrapping his legs around Jim's, when Jim wouldn't let him on top, tangling him so the Sentinel hadn't a prayer of getting up onto his feet.

 

Blair was too frightened to cry anymore, Jim decided as he let Blair's warmed fingers slip out on his mouth. His face was stark. His Guide. Jim thought. Whatever else he was, queer, gay, whatever, he was Jim's Guide. There was no way to deny it.

 

The Sentinel part of Jim knew his Guide when he'd met him. His whole being flowered when Blair had first touched him. Their first claiming was imprinted on Jim's mind, conscious and unconscious.

 

Jim dreamed about that first time. It comforted him. Just like he dreamed of his first time with Ben. Of all the Guides he'd had, only Ben had held that comfort for him. That level of connection. He never expected to feel it again after Ben died. But Blair had given that gift to him again. That peace, that connection. That security. He let his hand wander up, over Blair's face. Feeling trickled into him, filling him slow, but sure, a tiny flood.

 

"Jim! What the hell is going on?!" Simon roared, pounding down the stairs from the second floor. His gaze fastened onto Blair, crushed under Jim's body, Jim raised up, aggressively, his face hard at the anger in that voice shouting at him. "So help me if you've hurt him ..."

 

Jim automatically shifted his stance, hands and knees, breaking free of his Guide without hurting him, pushing Blair down, out of harm's way. Simon was a threat. Jim had an injured Guide in front of himself, a Guide he had to protect. That required an aggressive defense. He visualized the arc of the kick he was going to deliver....stepped over

Blair, turned his body, set...

 

Simon was off the stairs and heading across the carpeted living room. Jim shifted, measuring angles, his face intent. Five more strides and Simon would be in range. Four. Three.....Blair threw himself up and fastened himself around Jim's waist, fouling his legs, his imminent attack.

 

As if on cue Serena emerged from her first floor rooms carrying Mordecai. She stared at the tableau. Jim bending over Blair, both hands fisted. Blair disheveled, his face twisted with pain, agony, that was more than physical, his eyes looking so wounded, so hurt. She let out a cry of distress, heading for him. Simon felt his heart leap into his throat.

 

"Blair!" She let all the horror that was on her face pour out into her voice. She took in Jim standing over the downed man, and assumed the worst. The Sentinel had struck his Guide. "Oh! How could you?"

 

Simon's attention was immediately refocused on his Guide and her upset. She was running towards a Sentinel who Simon feared might be on the edge of losing control. Fear speared through him for her and the baby. He grabbed her as she ran past him, trapping her in his arms. She kicked at him. Clawed at him.

 

"Let me go!" She demanded, but nothing less than her Guide's voice could have made Simon let her go. And now she was too close to hysteria to use it. He clung to her grimly. "Put me down!"

 

"Serena." Blair called to her. "I'm fine." He struggled to get up, to keep himself in front of Jim. Jim grabbed him under his arms, raising him effortlessly. Automatically his arms held the man against him. Blair's heat, his upset shivering through Jim. Jim's hands ran over Blair's chest, soothing him, patting him. Holding him.

 

"No," she protested, "you aren't. I can feel how upset you are." She thrashed, aimed a solid kick at Simon's shin, felt it connect. Simon swore, hopping on one leg.

 

And to top it off, Mordecai started to wail.


	16. Chapter 16

It was that easy. Blair couldn't believe it. It couldn't be that easy. Even with the bruises, and the pain, the shouting, the threats, Serena's sobs. Mordecai howling. Simon's Guide kicking the shit out of the huge Sentinel's shins. It had been simple even with all of that. Unless there was something he'd missed. Something he wasn't seeing in the right light.

 

Jim was with him.

 

Just him saying to Jim it didn't matter if he loved Jim. It didn't change who Jim was, what he was. Jim bought it. Believed it. Relaxed, stopped trying to get out the door, out of Simon's house and away from Blair. Jim was reassured, or at least willing to give Blair the benefit of the doubt. It was that easy. Blair was stunned by it.

 

He half giggled to himself. Maybe, just maybe the truth did set you free. Well, not completely. Jim still hadn't given him the love he wanted, wasn't about to if Blair was any judge. His dream was only a dream now, perhaps would always be only a dream, a fantasy. But Jim also hadn't left him. They were still Sentinel and Guide. Which was worth a thousand fantasies in the secret dark.

 

Jim was here, with him, climbing the stairs to the loft. Blair limping, Jim close beside him. Aside from the limping, it was as if it were yesterday. Or last week. Or any day before Blair's confession. The two of them walking up to the loft. Jim's hand possessively on him.

 

Jim was here, Blair stole a look at the serene profile of the Sentinel. He wasn't leaving Blair at the curb and pulling away into traffic without looking back. He wasn't telling Blair they were through. He hadn't left his Guide at Simon's house. He was escorting Blair up the steps, palm cupped under the Guide's elbow, supporting him as Blair shuffled on sore feet.

 

So, Blair was taking that to mean not everything was lost. There was hope, and the bond left between them. Something to hang on to, to work with. It wasn't severed. It pulsed, beckoned, urged Blair to move closer, closer, press up against the man. He refrained. Jim was going to have to be the one to start any of that. Blair couldn't risk it. Not now.

 

Jim unlocked the door and stuck his head in, giving the room a visual once over. Just as he'd scanned with his other senses on the way up. His hearing, his sense of smell. Now a last look to make sure his Guide would be safe before letting him in. Satisfied Jim brought Blair inside.

 

Blair held his breath when Jim ushered him into the loft and closed the door. He'd feared Jim would be on the other side of it, walking away once he'd delivered Blair to the relative safety of the loft. But Ellison was inside, striding up the stairs to the room above.

 

Blair drew a steadying breath, heading for his own room, and pulling off his jacket as he went. His torn shirt followed. The ruined socks went into the trash. Then his pants into the laundry hamper.

 

He rummaged for sweats, found clean ones folded in the drawer and pulled them on. Thick, clean socks went on his bare feet, he winced, gingerly rolling them on. His feet were scraped all to hell from his being dragged over the floor at Simon's when he fought to keep Jim from leaving. But Blair didn't want to take the time to wash them, or wrap them yet. Not and risk losing what time he had with Jim. It might be only a few minutes...or, he hardly dared to hope, much longer.

 

He walked back out into the living room, heard Jim close his closet upstairs. OK. Jim was changing. Good sign?

 

He waited in the area between the kitchen and the couches...nervous, but doing his best to hide it. Jim came down the stairs in his own sweats and long sleeved T-shirt, pushing the sleeves up his corded forearms. He glanced up as he descended, catching sight of Blair.

 

He came right across the floor, and took Blair's arms in his strong hands. They shared a look. Blair trying to think of something, anything to say as Jim examined his face. He still hadn't found the words when Jim tugged him towards the bathroom. Blair went.

 

"Uh, Jim...?" He asked, needing to break the silence.

 

Jim looked at him, at his mouth, but then, glanced away without responding, saying anything in return. Blair slumped. He was getting the silent treatment. He was familiar with that, he'd had plenty of girlfriends...and when girls were unhappy...silent treatment. Even being yelled at was better. Only...Jim didn't look angry. Didn't "feel" angry to Blair. He bit his lip, worrying at it.

 

Jim filled the tub with water, turning on the taps, sitting Blair on the edge of the tub and rolling up the sweats to his Guide's knees. He paused for a few moments, just long enough to run his fingers over the bruises beginning to bloom across Blair's knees. Then he tugged off the socks, so carefully Blair felt not the tiniest twinge of pain from the fabric scraping over tender, abraded flesh. The socks were already stained with the fluid leaking from the wounds. Not a lot, but here and there, blood and a thinner fluid. Jim wet his finger, tasted the fluid. No infection. Of course it was early, the injury fresh.

 

Then Blair's abused feet went into the water. Which stung like crazy. He hissed his protest. Even knowing it was the best thing, and necessary, Blair nearly jerked his feet up and out of the water. Jim held him still until the burn eased, grip firm, and unyielding. Much stronger than Blair. But careful not to hurt him. This time.

 

Then Jim filled his hands with the mild liquid herbal soap Blair used, and washed the abrasions. Blair hissed his discomfort again and the Sentinel made little soothing sounds as he worked. But he didn't stop. Or speak.

 

Who knew that scrapes could hurt so much? Teeth gritted the Guide watched his Sentinel care for them. Blair didn't remember it hurting when he was a kid, a skinned knee was nothing much, certainly not enough to stop his play time. Now, he was wincing and jumping. Coming close to whining.

 

Jim patted his feet dry at last. He carried Blair to the couch and set him down with a firm hand on his shoulder telling him to stay put while Jim gathered up more supplies. Antiseptic cream followed, applied with a touch so light Blair honestly didn't feel it. And clean white gauze bandages, wrapped and taped. Quick, efficient, and gentle. Blair wriggled his toes, the only parts of his feet still visible.

 

Blair wondered at the touch, the gentle way the Sentinel handled him. How could he cope with the loss of this if it were forced on him? If Jim left him....

 

Jim's hands went from the practical administration of first aid, to the examination of his Guide. Blair felt it, the change in the contact. It wasn't sexy, it wasn't erotic, it was sensual, but not in the usual way that term was used.

 

Jim employed all the tools at his disposal. He bent down, went onto his belly, putting his face, his hypersensitive fingers to use as he nuzzled at Blair's feet, bumping his un-dressed toes. Rolling his face, his body, his skin against Blair. Blair held very, very still. Pliant. Jim was in control. Jim. The tongue that lapped at his toes was warm.

 

The Sentinel worked his way upwards. Putting his hands under clothing, pushing it aside for the survey, then arranging it back in place. He used his mouth, open and wet, on Blair's stomach, his teeth worrying at the flesh, licking at the trail of hair that led the eye downwards. His tongue flickered down into the groin, the soft curls, the relaxed genitals not hindering him. Butting his face against them as if they were nothing intimate, nothing more than Blair's hands, or feet. Blair let him.

 

Up to Blair's chest, his nipples also incidental bits that Jim explored but didn't concentrate on. It was his neck that fascinated the Sentinel. It was there where he lingered. Ellison burying his nose behind Blair's ear, inhaling. Blair had noted that many Sentinels liked to sniff there, around the throat and the neck. He'd done some graduate work on that very subject. But he couldn't get a Sentinel, not one, to admit what he'd observed. The neck was preferred over any other spot. They'd stared at him, indulgent, but not admitting a thing. So....his paper had not consisted of much more than observation. No subjective input.

 

But, since having his own Sentinel, Blair was sure it was significant.

 

Jim flattened him to the couch cushions, pressing his heavier body down on top of Blair. Nuzzling at Blair's neck. Blair tilted his head back, let Jim do as he pleased. Bonding. That meant Jim considered Blair his. Blair let out a shuddering sigh. Which caused his Sentinel to freeze for a few moments, then Jim went right back to his sniffing.

 

It had to be half an hour later that Jim abandoned his neck. Blair had fallen into an almost meditative state. His awareness that Jim was lifting up, his weight easing up off of Blair, took a while to register.

 

Jim scooped up everything and put it away. He went into the kitchen and Blair listened to him opening the refrigerator, a Tupperware container, and the beeps of the microwave being started. He lay where he was. Unable to find a reason to sit up for the moment.

 

The microwave finished. Jim came back to the living room. He set down a bowl of soup. Homemade. Blair remembered making it himself. Vegetable. He'd thought about oxtail...but had decided not to use any meat this time. A spoon and a napkin. A bottle of water. The top off. Ready to drink. And lined up precisely behind the water, a beer. Open. The message clear. Soup, then water, then beer. Or at least start the soup, drink the water, and nurse the beer.

 

Blair sat up. Jim sat next to him. The Sentinel watched every spoonful as Blair ate it. He watched as Blair swallowed the water, down to the last drop. Then he watched Blair take a swallow from the beer. A Canadian microbrew. Not bad. He looked at the label. Jim took it out of his hand. Put his mouth around the top, drank a tiny bit, gave it back.

 

It was the slowest beer Blair ever drank. After every sip, Jim took the bottle and had his own taste. The light blue eyes never left his face. They sat together in silence as they finished the beer. Jim sat the empty container on the table. Blair couldn't help but remember one of the rules Jim had mumbled the first day at the loft. No eating on the couch. Well, that one had been blown out of the water.

 

"Jim," Suddenly Blair knew he had to say something, he couldn't sit here and say nothing. Jim leaned forward so rapidly Blair blinked, flinched, as if he was expecting to be slapped. Jim's fingers pressed to Blair's lips. Not hard but making it absolutely clear Blair wasn't to speak.

 

Blair nodded his understanding, and Jim pulled back, licking his fingers where they had been against Blair's skin. Jim sat watching his Guide. Blair watched his Sentinel watching him.

 

They shared a second beer.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

 

Simon reached for the incessantly ringing phone. He was stretched out on the bed upstairs, an ice pack on his shin where he was already sporting a heck of a bump, and Mordecai, finally quiet, resting on his chest. The baby was asleep, exhausted by his fierce crying jag. Simon's hand was cupped over his diapered rump. Simon was pretty sure of one thing, Mordecai was going to be a Guide when he grew up. The kid picked up on everything. Every mood.

 

"What?" He snapped into the receiver, fighting to keep his voice low. Not wanting to wake Cai.

 

"Don't you use that tone with me, Simon Banks." Came the acidic rejoinder. His ex-wife. Shit.

 

Simon deflated. Oh great. Just what he needed to finish a super day.

 

"What do you want, Joan? And keep your voice down, the baby is asleep." Simon almost groaned at that. He shouldn't have let that slip. The silence on the other end wasn't the kind of silence to be cherished. It was electric, churning, ready to explode.

 

"You son of a bitch." The explosion was quiet, but no less venomous for all of that. "How dare you not say anything about this new ~guide~ of yours. You let Daryl meet her without warning him at all. Or me. She is younger than he is. He told me about her, so don't try to tell me she is just your ~guide~. You dirty old son-of-a-bitch."

 

Simon let his head fall back on his pillow. Joan certainly had not mellowed with age. Still as hotheaded and fiery as the girl he'd married. But not nearly as lovable.

 

"Serena is my Guide. I am sorry that makes you unhappy. I'd have thought considering how you reacted to Johnny, you'd be happy that she was female at least." Simon tried to remain civil. Tried not to give in to the anger. Mordecai would cry again if Simon yelled. Even if Joan deserved it.

 

"Happy? Happy that you are sleeping with a young lady who is not even as old as our son? For shame, Simon! And Daryl...." she stopped, her voice shaking. Abruptly Simon was worried.

 

"What about Daryl? Is he all right?"

 

The freezing silence lasted no more than thirty seconds, but Simon almost shouted at her to tell him what was wrong with Daryl.

 

"He doesn't talk about anything else. Just his father's new Guide." Joan said at last.

 

Simon sagged with relief. Joan was jealous. OK, he could handle that. "They got along." He offered mildly. "Talked a lot about music and things." He said.

 

"Music? You think this is about music? Ghod, I always knew you were blind. Simon Banks, your son is in love with your Guide. What the hell are you going to do about that? How could you let this happen? Damn you to hell." She slammed the receiver down.

 

Simon gaped. The insistent beeping of the phone jarred him out of his mini-zone and he hung it up.

 

Daryl? In love with Serena?


	17. Chapter 17

Simon slammed the door. It rattled alarmingly, sending shock waves through the entire bullpen. Wide eyes starred at him as he stalked towards his desk inside the glass walls of his office.

 

H and Rafe grabbed their coats and fled, scurrying out while they could. Even for Simon, even for a boss who liked to yell to get his point across these last few days had been...unusual. Barnes dragged her new hefty, emphatically male Guide out immediately after the other detectives. Until only Blair remained, everyone else having fled.

 

Blair sat running a pencil through his fingers watching the pacing Sentinel out of the corner of his eye. Something was wrong with Simon. He sighed, safe in the knowledge of Simon's insulated office. If Sentinels in the bullpen couldn't hear Simon...well then Simon couldn't hear what was going on out here, unless he left his door open. The door which had been slammed a few moments ago.

 

So the only question was...what should Blair do? Simon was a friend. A friend who had been acting very strangely for quite a few days now. Avoiding every friendly invitation from Blair to talk about what was troubling him. Serena, when Blair called, hadn't any idea what was troubling her Sentinel.

 

According to her, their bonding was going well, no trouble at all. Simon wasn't avoiding her, or physical contact. He was spending extra time with the baby. Seemed content, maybe a little possessive, but that wasn't much of a surprise. Blair agreed, a possessive Simon was no surprise at all. More gently directed questions, and still Blair had no answers as to why Simon had turned into the terror of the precinct.

 

Waiting a few days for Serena to look into it hadn't produce the kind of results Blair was hoping for. Of course she was young, and while she was good for Simon, or at least she seemed to be when Blair observed them, maybe it was time Blair himself looked into what was wrong. Decision arrived at, he stood wiping his damp palms off on his jeans. Confronting Simon was a daunting proposition. But something had to give.

 

A tentative knock sounded. Simon rounded on the door with fire in his eye. Blair thought that all that rage, all that anger couldn't be good for his heart.

 

"What are you, deaf? Can't you leave me..." The curly head poked around the frame. Blair. The big blue eyes gazed at Simon, trepidation mixed with determination shining in their depths. And he couldn't yell at the Guide.

 

"OK. What is it?" Blair asked as he closed the door behind himself. Simon was striding away from him, making for his desk and putting it between them. OK, Blair thought. Avoidance of physical contact. Is is just me or....

 

Simon collapsed into his chair. "I don't want to talk about it." He said.

 

"I think you don't have a choice. If you bite off one more head you'll have run out of detectives working for you." Blair settled a hip on the corner of Simon's desk. Simon looked at him warily, as if nervous Blair was so close. Blair filed that response away. Yes, Simon was avoiding contact. How had Serena missed this? "So go ahead, tell Auntie Blair."

 

"Auntie Blair?" Simon smiled in spite of himself. "You had a recent sex change? It's not in your files. I am sure Jim is pleased."

 

Blair looked unutterably sad for a moment then he managed a ghost of a smile. Simon felt like a heel. He opened his mouth to apologize but Blair was already talking and the opportunity passed.

 

"Nope. But most of the people I found easy to talk to growing up were women. My mom had lots of friends who were Aunties. Auntie Mabel. Auntie Chloe, the list goes on....but the Uncles...sorry, never could talk to one of them. So....Auntie Blair is here to listen to your problems."

 

Simon grew serious. "Really, Blair I don't think...."

 

"Let me help you. I owe you. You helped me and Jim." Blair said. He settled into the chair in front of Simon's desk.

 

Simon snorted. "Oh, yeah, that worked out well. You were on medical leave for a week before you could wear your shoes. And even then Jim was fussing over you, carrying you around the station..."

 

"No need to remind me, I remember that perfectly well. I was the one over his shoulder half the time." Blair said, rubbing his gut. "A fireman's carry isn't all that comfortable."

 

"It didn't look like much fun. How are the two of you doing?" Simon's curiosity got the better of him. He'd promised himself he wouldn't interfere again. Serena had been furious at him for letting Jim take Blair out of the house. Then because he wouldn't go to the loft with her to check on Blair when she found out Blair was on medical leave.

 

Simon had patiently explained that interrupting the re-bonding process that was going on, the healing the two men were doing as a partnership could have grave consequences. She didn't buy it. She was worried Jim was hurting Blair.

 

Luckily for him, Blair called her and reassured her that he was safe and being well cared for. He also talked her out of coming over and seeing for herself. Serena clashing with Jim, Simon shuddered. Not to be looked forward to.

 

"Well. On one hand he hasn't left my side since I was injured for more than a few hours at a time. On the other, he won't talk about "you know what". Any time he thinks I'm bringing it up he touches my mouth, puts his fingers on my lips. Looks at me, and I can't get the words out. We should talk...but he isn't letting us."

 

"I am sorry, Blair." Simon offered sincerely. "But maybe Jim knows best. He is dealing with it the best way he can."

 

"By avoiding the subject? Not healthy." Blair was firm in his declaration.

 

"It is Jim. Even when he was with Jack, before Carolyn, he'd have these days, sometimes weeks when he'd be driven, when he wouldn't talk about anything but work, except maybe food. Wonder Burger."

 

Blair grimaced, thinking of the greasy burgers, then leaned forward. "That wasn't healthy, either. He shouldn't internalize."

 

"How do you know?" Simon asked, interested in how Blair was drawing his conclusions.

 

"I've read the case notes from his service record. He had no physical ailments. No allergies, no rashes, no zones. No problems at all when he was with Sarris. He was so problem free the Army studied him and Sarris like bacteria under a microscope."

 

Simon shuddered at the thought. Sentinels were private. Ellison must have hated being the subject of that kind of scrutiny.

 

"The point is, he almost never was alone. He and Sarris spent the lion's share of their time together or with their unit. Video shows he and Sarris talked, a lot. Preferred to be in physical contact, things like shoulders brushing, thighs, not sitting in each others lap in

public or anything. He's started the physical contact part with me. But not the talking part. When we are at the loft...not a word. He wakes me up by sitting on my bed and stroking my face. He feeds me, bathes me. Picks out the clothes he wants me to wear. And I'm lucky if we speak more than a dozen words before we get here."

 

"Are you sure you aren't exaggerating? He talks to you here. I haven't noticed any difference." Simon offered. Jim seemed completely normal to him, focused on work as usual. Touching Blair, patting him, ruffling his hair. His senses in damn fine control.

 

Blair sighed. "Trust me." He said. Simon nodded. He did trust Blair.

 

"Now, what is bothering you, since you've pried all my secrets out of me. No fair not to share." The Guide prompted.

 

Simon considered the young man sitting in front of his desk. "Where is Jim?" He asked, hoping against hope for a few more minutes of respite. Or failing that for Jim to come in a haul Blair out.

 

"He's picking up take out. Indian food. Curry." Blair said mildly. "Now it is your turn. Tell me. I know something is bothering you."

 

"Joan called." Simon said. giving in to the inevitable. "Has been calling."

 

"And...." It was a fair bet that was not the whole story. Blair waited.

 

"And she had some things to say. Not very nice things." Simon said. "She doesn't like the fact Serena is a young as she is."

 

"Uh huh." Blair nodded. "Understandable. She wishes your Guide was more...your own age?" Simon nodded.

 

"Yes, but not in a nice way. She isn't concerned for me, for how I am getting along with a Guide young enough to be my daughter. She is focused on the inappropriateness of our pairing, how it looks. She thinks I am taking advantage." Simon filled Blair in on part of the rantings he'd heard from his ex-wife.

 

"A lot of people feel that way. They don't understand the way it is between Sentinels and Guides." Blair said.

 

"Well it doesn't help that I am one of those people. I am just relieved she isn't any younger. I don't care if Guides are legal to bond down to 15. I'd rather stay unbonded than take a Guide that young. It is hard enough that she and Daryl are almost the same age. I feel like I am taking advantage. Robbing the cradle."

 

Blair inhaled slowly. He could hear the real concern in Simon's voice. This was a big worry for the Sentinel. And not an uncommon one. Simon pressed on.

 

"She said...that our son is in love with my Guide." Simon dropped that bombshell. And Blair let out a long slow breath. Oh shit.

 

"You don't believe her, do you?" Blair asked. Knowing he could have worded his question better, but he was rattled a bit. This, if it were true was not good, not good at all. Fighting Sentinel instinct and the instinct of a parent...Simon was in deep shit.

 

"I didn't. Until Daryl showed up two weekends ago. I watched them. They have so much in common." Simon looked distinctly unhappy. He wasn't one of the newer or far older generations of Sentinels who might be able to handle sharing their Guides like this. The current American culture didn't lend itself to such pairings.

 

"Yeah so? Serena and I have a lot in common. It so doesn't mean we are in love." Blair tried to inject some doubt into the picture, watching Simon closely. Simon didn't buy it. OK, so Simon believed his son was in love with his Guide.

 

"Blair." Simon's voice was serious. "I thought about...when I smelled him on her. I thought about...." He couldn't say it. It was almost impossible to admit it. Saying it out loud, he couldn't go that far. Blair's brows flew up.

 

"Shit. Really?" He let out a big breath. "That's messed up. Have they...I don't want to upset you by asking but...have they had sex?"

 

Simon glared at the Guide. "What did you think I meant by when I smelled him on her?"

 

"OK. I assume you haven't talked with her about it?" Blair held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I had to be sure we were on the same wavelength. I take it you aren't happy with the arrangement?"

 

Simon stared at him like he was nuts. "Of course not, Sandburg. Who would be?"

 

"Well there are tribes in Mongolia where Guides are very rare, and it is not uncommon for brothers to share a Guide between them, or a whole family to share one Guide if there are multiple Sentinels in the family."

 

Simon felt his gorge rise. "In case you haven't noticed, this isn't Mongolia." And he was not sharing his Guide with his son and being happy about it. He remembered with some guilt how he'd nearly talked himself into the possibility of sharing Blair...but that was far from the same thing as sharing with his son. Who wasn't a Sentinel.

 

"Serena...is she still your Guide?" Blair asked bluntly. "Do you still consider her yours?"

 

"Yes." Simon's answer was firm, decisive. "She is mine."

 

"Is she still seeing your son?" Blair asked next. "Have you confronted them?" Simon shook his head at the last.

 

"As of yesterday, yes." He answered. "They are still seeing each other."

 

"Does she know you know?" Blair asked. "Serena probably saw the two things as completely different. Not seeing her bonding and claiming with Simon as being in conflict with her dating his son. To her, Blair was willing to bet, it was apples and oranges.

 

"No, she doesn't know." Simon said with absolute certainty.

 

"Are you sure?" Blair still pushed.

 

"Yes." One word, complete conviction.

 

"Does Daryl suspect you know?"

 

Simon shook his head. "No. But, I can smell the guilt on him."

 

"So he might tell you soon?" Blair guessed.

 

Simon shrugged. "He might confess. It is they way he was growing up. Do something he felt was wrong, feel guilty, mope around, then tell his mother and I."

 

"And then you will have to decide what to do." Blair said. "Once you know. You will have to deal with it."

 

"Yes."

 

"Uh, what will you do?" Curious, Blair leaned forward. Wondering if he should get up and risk talking the larger man into his arms. He didn't like how Simon was avoiding contact. That was a sign of trouble.

 

"I haven't a fucking clue." Simon told him. "Not one ghod damned clue."

 

"Oh, Simon." Blair said. "That is bad."


	18. Chapter 18

Jim eased the front door of his house noiselessly shut, not wanting to wake his wife if she was sleeping. It would be good enough to slip into bed with her and hold her. To sleep next to her.

 

He hadn't been home at all in two days, his time stretched to not a moment free between his new case and the few hours he spent asleep with Blair, much of that sleep had been in one of the station bunk-rooms. If Blair hadn't insisted, Jim wouldn't have even grabbed those few hours of rest.

 

He'd been a Sentinel on the hunt, unswerving as he tried to track down the two men who'd killed a college student as she walked home from a night class. They had been high on drugs. Too high to succeed in their attempt to rape her. Carrying guns, but they'd strangled her. left her by the side of the road for a motorist, a nurse coming home from a sixteen hour shift, to find her and call 911 too late to save the twenty year old. A promising life snuffed out in a senseless crime. Jim and H had been like hungry wolves on a trail. Unwilling to stop their pursuit for even food or rest. Rafe and Blair had forced them to eat and drink and grab a few hours sleep.

 

Jim had left messages, Carolyn had not called him back, nor left him any messages he could find. He'd tried to locate her at work today, intending to take her out to lunch after the case broke wide open and the arrests were made, only to discover she had taken some personal time off. Which scared the shit out of him.

 

He could count on one hand the number of times she'd taken off of work. The most notable time had been their week long honeymoon. All the other times had not been happy occasions. He called her from the station. It was the twenty first message he'd left during the last four days. No return call. He was worried. So he came home, despite the flux his bond with Sandburg was undergoing, despite his body's aching need for sleep.

 

The physical need to be with his Guide, to assure himself they were still bonded ran through his nerves like a dozen knives. Harsh and impossible to entirely ignore. He'd gone through the same thing with Sarris. Holed up like hibernating bears for three weeks one time. After Sarris had been creased by a bullet. A minor injury but the first since Jim and Ben had bonded. Food, water, clean linens and accommodations provided for courtesy of the US Army that time. Jim had been like a wounded animal, snarling and growling at anyone who approached them. He'd gone into one of the solitary rooms all the Sentinel and Guide pairs were introduced to for emergencies, just him and his Guide, locking the door from the inside. Barricading it.

 

Twenty days later Jim let them out. The Army welcomed them back to active duty without a ripple.

 

Carolyn, however, wasn't prepared to be that understanding. Jim knew that for a fact. And the worry that dominated his brain distracted him enough he wasn't aware of how close the other resident of the house was. Until she was directly behind him. Until she shoved him up against the wall.

 

He froze when he felt the hard metal press against the back of his neck.

 

A hand slipped into his pants pocket, even as he recognized who was behind him by her scent. His wife was holding him at gunpoint. The barrel of her gun pressed into him, denting his skin. He held very still. Waiting for whatever she needed to say, to do. Considering how he'd almost ran to his own death a few days ago, it was funny how much he wanted to live this time.

 

He heard her flip his wallet across the room.

 

"James Joseph Ellison." She whisper-snarled at him. "Funny, I once had a husband with that name. What a co-incidence, the man breaking into my home having the same name and all." There was no give to her tone, no forgiveness.

 

"Caro...." Jim started. She only pushed the barrel harder into the base of his skull.

 

The gun's position would direct the bullet upwards, into his brain stem and out his face. Killing him instantly. He felt her hand, steady as a rock. He felt her body, soft, her front pressing against his back. She was tall for a woman, but not wearing heels right now. Her belly and his ass making contact. He was much taller than she was. It was awkward for her to keep the gun in position. He registered that. Waited. thought about ways to disarm her without hurting her, came up blank. So he waited some more.

 

"No, you listen to me, you son-of-a-bitch. You haven't come home in a week for more than a few hours at a time. I haven't slept with you in a week. You kiss me and run. You must think that is all I am worth. One measly kiss. Then you run off to your boyfriend. Fuck him. I am tired of it. I won't be treated like that, Jimmy. Are we communicating here?"

 

"I slept at the station..." Jim tried to explain. The gun barrel dugin harder, forcing him, the side of his face into the white painted wall next to the door. She reached around him, grabbing a handful of his crotch.

 

"No. No. Don't you dare tell me about anything you are doing with that freak. I know you slept WITH HIM at the station. Flaunting it, Ellison." She squeezed his genitals through his pants. "This is mine, Jim-bo. I am your wife. You don't have the right to spread it around. You gave it to me when we spoke our vows. You promised me I'd be the only one." She massaged the bulky package, and in spite of the situation, Jim felt himself begin to harden.

 

"He is my Guide." He whispered in token protest. "I wasn't..." He hadn't claimed Blair at the station. He'd done that only once in six days, the one time they'd made it to the loft. He had more control now, thanks to Blair. No public claimings.

 

"He. Is. Not. Your. Guide. I am your Guide. I was your Guide. Until you rejected me. Until you violated my trust. Took up with him. What are you, Jimmy? A faggot? Are you coming out of the closet? Is that what all of this is about? Spread your legs." He obeyed, cringing. She laughed when she felt him. Her hand fondled him, rubbing him, toying with his zipper.

 

"I'm not even sure why I want this Ellison. Knowing where it's been. Knowing that queer boy has been getting it shoved up his ass. You using condoms with him, Jimbo? Never know where he's been, who he's sleeping with."

 

Jim was smart enough not to try and tell Carolyn that he and Blair had had full disclosure on that front. That Blair had been tested every three months and was as clean as Ellison himself. And that Blair's last relationship was with a woman, with whom he practised safe sex without fail. Jim was the only person he'd had contact with without a condom in years. Since Jack died, Carolyn had been Jim's only partner.

 

Her hand moved, dragging his zipper down, tooth by tooth. The gun never shifted. She reached into his pants, pulled him out, hard penis and testicles outside of his pants, the sharp metal teeth of the zipper cutting into him. She gave them a proprietary squeeze, he

hissed at the grip she had on his balls, too tight. She chuckled. Removed her hand.

 

"Isn't this fun? Don't move now." Then she backed away. She backed up a step, half a dozen then spoke again, not raising her voice, the whisper sending chills down his back as he stayed right where he was.

 

He didn't move. Wouldn't until she told him to. She was still upset enough to be provoked if he moved.

 

"Hands and knees, Ellison. Crawl. Get over here. On the rug. Leave your dick and balls where I can see them." She told him.

 

He turned, saw her standing by the fireplace. A fire on the grate. A rug he'd never seen before in front of it. One of those fake fur ones. He lowered himself onto hands and knees. He crawled over to the rug, dialing down the discomfort of crawling over the stones of the entryway, the way the edge of his flies dug into his scrotum.

 

He stopped on the rug. She stepped further away, well aware of his abilities, just enough out of reach he couldn't do anything yet. He hadn't the slightest doubt she would shoot him if he forced her to. And of course, he didn't want to hurt her.

 

"On your back. Undress. Everything. Throw them all over there, against the wall. Make one move towards me, Jimmy, and you will regret it. Gun first, two fingers hold it over your head, other hand under your back. There, now undress." Her voice was hard as he handed her his gun. Again he didn't doubt a word. He stripped. Knowing somehow if he obeyed her she wouldn't shoot him.

 

She worked her way around him as he lay on his back. She pulled out her handcuffs.

 

"Your right hand." He gave it to her. She fastened the cuff around his wrist then through a ring bolt sunk into the edge of the fireplace. He'd never seen it before. The heat from the small fire in the grate was warm, not overly hot on his hand. He watched her warily. Unsure if he should say anything yet. She seemed to know what he was thinking. She nodded at him.

 

"Don't say anything. Give me your left hand." She produced a second set of cuffs. Secured his left wrist to the bolt. Tossed the keys to the cuffs against the far wall, next to his clothes. "Now, Jimmy. I know you can think of a dozen things to do with your feet to incapacitate me. And I'm going to give you a chance to do that. But, if you do, then you'll have to count on someone else finding you like this, because I won't let you free. And..." She leaned forward, looking at him upside down. "I'll have divorce papers on your desk within a week. Is that what you want, Jimmy?"

 

Surprisingly, he didn't want that. He didn't want her to divorce him. He held still, observed her as she worked her underwear off from under her skirt. 

 

"You are going to like this." She promised him, then straddled him.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

"Sit down, Sandburg." H called, over to him as he rummaged through the refrigerator. Jim had wanted someone to watch Blair while he went to check on Carolyn. Rafe and H were free. Jim dropped him off.

 

"Thinks I need a babysitter." Blair grumbled to himself. Which he didn't, but he'd agreed to it this time, because Jim seemed so on edge. Nervous. He wanted to give Jim one less thing to worry about. So here he was with Rafe and H.

 

Blair was fine for the first half hour. Joking with the two other men. Thirty one minutes into it, he'd started to get restless. Worried. He'd called the loft from the bathroom, to see if Jim was there. Even though he knew he wasn't. H caught him and confiscated his phone when he came out.

 

"Relax, hairboy," H said affectionately, ruffling Blair's hair. "Jim's fine. He's with Carolyn. He'll call." He looped one long arm around Blair. Hugged him close. Sat him on the sofa between himself and Rafe, turned the game on. Blair thought he was going to go nuts. They wouldn't let him up until the microwave dinged, and dinner was ready.

 

Blair bit his lip. He ate the dinner they put in front of him. This was ridiculous, he told himself. H was right, Jim was fine. The sensations crawling over his skin like a thousand fire ants was his jealousy, nothing else. Jim loved her. Jim...liked him.

 

Blair forced himself to listen to Rafe and H talking over the case they'd just wrapped up, the one they'd shared with Jim. Blair knew all the details by heart. Jim needed this time away from him. Nothing was wrong. He was just borrowing trouble.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

She rose up off of him after his second ejaculation. He groaned, his lower back was killing him. His shoulders were stretched, strained.

 

"Perfect, Jimmy, I couldn't have asked for better." She pulled her panties back on. Then she lay on the couch looking down at him. Demure. Beautiful. Her hand trailing over his bare thigh. "Now we talk, and then you go home to your little boy toy."

 

Jim eyed her as she spoke. Her smile was off. Strange. He could still hear the anger in her voice, though mellowed by her own orgasm. She was still pissed, still dangerous. His genitals were wet, cold. Their combined secretions drying on him, cooling as they evaporated.

 

"I have two more days off. Tomorrow and Thursday. I'll be home at six both nights. I want you here. We'll spend some time getting close, you and I. Won't that be fun?" Jim didn't bother to answer.

 

"I know you think this is crazy, Ellison. But look at it from my point of view. It is the only way I can get time with my husband. Isn't that pathetic? I have to hold my own husband at gunpoint to get sex from him. To make love with him. That." She poked him in the leg with her finger. "Isn't. Right."

 

She sat up. Smiled again. Jim watched her. Her face, the way the fire shone in her red hair. She was beautiful. She smelled warm, ripe. He wanted her. He loved her. "We are almost done here. Don't worry, honey. You can go soon."

 

Her voice was lonely. Sad now. He hurt for her pain. He hated to hear it in her tone. Hated knowing it was his fault.

 

"I need to spend time with you. I love you. Don't I deserve time with you?" Her voice cracked.

 

Jim felt a wave of guilt wash over him. He'd been ignoring her, not trying hard enough to make time for her. He'd driven her to this extreme.

 

"I'm sorry, Caro. I love you. You are my wife." He told her. She sniffled. Reached for a tissue. Dabbed at her nose. Her eyes were huge, wounded. She looked down at him.

 

"I'm sorry." She gave into her sobs. Her shoulders shaking.

 

"Caro. Let me go. Please, baby. I need to hold you. Please. Let me hold you. Don't cry." Jim murmured to her. Hating himself for doing this to her. For making her feel like this.

 

Slowly, she rose to her feet, went over to the keys and brought them back. She freed Jim's hands and he ignored the fiery pain in his shoulder joints as he lowered his arms. He enfolded her in his arms. Rocked her.

 

"This is my fault. All my fault. I'll be here tomorrow. I promise you. And the next day. I'll talk to Simon. Get the time..." Jim said. She shook her head. "Please Caro, I want to spend time with you. Let me do this for you."

 

"No. Just be here at six. Don't tell Simon. I don't want him to know what I had to do to ..." She sobbed again. Jim hugged her tightly. "I am not ready to spend all day or night with you, not after..." She hesitated. Then shook her head, her silken hair brushing over his bare chest.

 

"No, Jimmy. I can handle...I want..a few hours with you. That is all. Maybe more later. I know you need time with...your Guide. But for now..." She didn't finish. Jim didn't push her. If she wanted a few hours, he'd give them to her.

 

Guilt crashed down over him. He'd driven her to this state. It was up to him to make it all right. Blair would just have to understand.

 

Carolyn allowed herself a smile hidden against her husband's body. Like taking candy from a baby. He was falling right into her plans.


	19. Chapter 19

Jim listened as the powerful car drove up the street, engine a low rumble in his awareness. Big, lots of horsepower, he thought. Quiet, well tuned. He looked over at the clock in the kitchen. Eleven pm. Sort of late for anyone to be driving around in this neighborhood. He had chosen it because it was quiet.

 

Carolyn was asleep, in his arms, her head pillowed on his chest. They were still on the rug in the living room. He was a little colder than he'd like, but not terribly so, the fire was still smoldering in the grate, sending out a weak band of heat into the room. He was warm all along the side of his body where his wife rested.

 

Unlike all the other cars that he'd listened to, this one didn't drive past. It pulled up into the driveway. Jim tensed. He was laying naked in his living room, unarmed. Not good. Time to get up. And at least get his hands on a gun if not his pants.

 

Carefully he eased out from under Carolyn, taking the extra seconds he needed to pull one of the couch pillows down and nudge it under her head. She settled on it with a sigh, and he had to smile; she could sleep though anything. Then he crept quickly over to his gun, laying on top of his clothes. Checked it. Gun first...pants if there was time, he thought. That reflex was automatic, drilled into him when he and Ben were in the Special Forces.

 

Someone was walking up to the door, he heard the quiet crunch of gravel, someone big. Jim lifted his gun, aiming towards the door, keeping himself between Carolyn and the only entry the intruder had. Jim let his breath out slowly, listening hard, sniffing the air as the light knock sounded. His shoulders relaxed. He lowered his weapon but didn't set it aside. He stepped over to the door, the stones under his feet chilled. He dialed touch way down.

 

"Simon." He said, low, his face against the wooden door, his left hand spidered over the wood, spread wide. He hoped the other Sentinel could hear him. He'd prefer not to have to let Simon in until he was dressed. Or not at all. Simon was a detective and a Sentinel, and that meant he had a better than average chance of figuring out something wasn't quite right.

 

"Jim." Jim heard Simon's response even through the door without any trouble. He smiled. Simon also heard him, Simon was getting better. Serena was doing him some good, helping him heal and function better than he had since Johnny went down. Jim was pleased with that. He was also proud that his own Guide, Blair, was so much better than any other. Blair. Jim let himself think of the younger man for a few moments. Let himself smile. Then....

 

"What do you want?" Jim asked. Keeping his tone neutral, Carolyn's heartbeat was steady, regular, she was asleep, had always been a heavy sleeper, unlike Jim. Not much chance of her waking and listening in.

 

"May I come in?" Simon asked a little impatiently. There was a tension in his voice, it made Jim nervous, but he still didn't want Simon inside.

 

"No."

 

"Fine. I just came to tell you Blair is in the ER at Cascade General. They are planning on admitting him. I am on the way to visit. Do you want me to give him a message when he wakes up?"

 

Jim had the door open in a flash. Naked, uncaring that he was. Simon smelled sex. He kept his face blank. Jim was married. Jim wasn't being unfaithful. Blair had no expectations that Jim would give up his wife. Simon just wished...he killed that thought before it grew into trouble. Jim had a wife and a Guide to try and keep happy.

 

"Why didn't anyone call me?" Jim growled. Even as the answer came to him.

 

"Because your phone is turned off." Simon answered for him, his jaw clenching and releasing. He watched Jim move away from him, fast. Jim was naked and not self-conscious about it that Simon could see.

 

And hot damn the man had a killer body. Simon felt a spike of envy. He wished he was in that kind of shape. The kind of shape he'd been in when he worked the streets. But Serena couldn't work the streets. And Simon wouldn't want her to try. Johnny had been tough as nails, Serena...she was soft and young and untrained in police work. Naive. Simon didn't want that to change.

 

Blair was Jim's Guide. Just like Serena was his. Jim had every right to sleep with his wife. Just as Serena had the right to fall in love with Simon's son. Simon felt his face harden despite his best efforts. He closed his eyes. Counted to ten. Jim interrupted him.

 

"What happened?" He ground out tersely, leaving the door open and heading for the heap of clothes that were against the wall. Simon stepped inside, saw Carolyn sleeping soundly on the rug in front of the remnants of a romantic fire. He sniffed delicately. Yes, sex. And a tang of something else. Fear? Not hers...Jim's? Why would Jim be afraid? Why would that scent be here, overwhelming everything else? His brow wrinkled, his gaze traveling over the scene.

 

He saw hand cuffs hanging off of the edge of the fireplace, dangling from a ring bolt. Simon blinked. Carolyn...or Jim? He wondered automatically. Forcing his eyes up and away, watching Jim dress. Trying to picture Carolyn letting Jim cuff her...and failing. Of course it was not much easier seeing Jim being in cuffs. But Simon was certain it had gone that way, not the other.

 

Simon watched the ex-Special Forces captain dress. Efficient, fast. One, two, three, Jim was neat and ready. Jacket over his arm, shirt tucked. Shoes tied, heading for the door. He stopped, knelt down kissed his slumbering wife on the corner of her mouth, straightened, whispering, "Tomorrow, Caro, six pm." Simon was sure she didn't wake to hear him. Then Jim was up.

 

"What happened, Simon?" Jim eased the door shut behind them, locking it. Padding on silent feet down the walkway. A predator, Simon thought. More so than most Sentinels, though all were hunters of one kind or another.

 

Simon shrugged. "Don't know. H said Blair was fine at first, then started to get restless. He tried to call you, Blair did, so H took away his cell, thought you'd appreciate the privacy. They ate. Watched some TV and all of a sudden Blair was moaning, and up, running for the bathroom. He didn't stop dry heaving until the doctors at the ER sedated him."

 

"Bad food?" Jim asked. "Rafe and H sick?"

 

"Nope. They are fine. H says this isn't physical, as far as he can tell. Sandburg doesn't smell sick to him."

 

"Shit." Jim said, climbing into Simon's car.

 

"Oh, yeah." Simon agreed. "Shit. Sentinel shit." He said a second later as he closed the driver's side door.

 

"Damn it, Simon...I can't even get away from him for a minute to be with my wife..." Jim started in, angrily. "I try to spend time with her and he pulls this. It's like he can't give me any freedom, any autonomy."

 

"Not fair, Ellison." Simon growled back. "The reason he is good for you is that he is so sensitive. You know your marks with Sarris. This is the kind of Guide you need. Blair is. Better get used to it. He can't change it."

 

"Wasn't married then." Jim grumbled. "And maybe I don't want a Guide like that again." Simon swung the big car out into the light traffic of the main road.

 

 

"No but Sarris was. How did he handle it?" Simon ignored the last statement. It didn't deserve a comment. The urge to tell Jim to stuff his complaining and just let Simon have Blair was right on the tip of his tongue. He bit it, hard.

 

If Blair was his....and wanting that was still wrong.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

"Sentinel Ellison." The Sentinel/Guide Specialist greeted Jim seconds after he and Simon entered the ER. Simon politely stepped back and let Jim stand alone beside the doctor. He could hear what was being said perfectly well.

 

"Doctor Rice." Ellison acknowledged her, they'd met more than once. She was a Sentinel herself, her Guide a nurse in the same ER. A pleasantly plump and industrious man with the same enviable degree of energy that Blair had. "How is my Guide?"

 

Her face took on an odd expression, quickly hidden as was the sniff she took. Re-checking the data, Jim thought bitterly, keeping his face set in stone. Wondering why I'd be out having sex, even if it was with my wife, and not be with my Guide. Jim ruthlessly squashed the sense of guilt that threatened to rise up and demand he take responsibility for this debacle with Blair. It wasn't his fault.

 

"It is pretty clear what happened, Blair, your Guide, had sympathetic reaction. Not his own illness or distress. But one happening to someone he was closely bonded to. I understand he's had a few of the same incidents in the past, one quite recently when Sentinel Banks had a heart attack. Which is unusual, considering Guide Sandburg was even then bonded to you." She said. "Come, let's sit over here while I fill you in."

 

Jim resisted, he didn't want to talk, he wanted to see for himself Blair was going to be OK. "I'd like to see my Guide." He asserted. He could smell Blair's scent faintly, a teasing aroma mostly shielded by the rooms in the Sentinel ER. The scent was raising his need to be with Blair. To check him over. His skin tingled.

 

"I'm afraid that isn't possible yet, not until I figure out where the source of Blair's reaction is, and if any measures need to be taken. Come, Sentinel, it will only take a few minutes." Her tone said she had pretty much figured it out, and was laying the blame at Jim's feet. Jim was beyond pissed. But here, in this place, Dr Rice had the power to keep him from Blair. If she deemed it was better for the Guide, she could have Jim tranquilized. He set his jaw. Let her lead him away from Blair and his lingering, elusive scent.

 

The conference room she chose was empty. Not surprising at just before midnight on a weekday. They took chairs across from each other. Jim literally rigid with impatience. Prepared to take offense with anything the Doctor said.

 

"Sentinel Ellison, there is no point in beating around the bush. I've looked over some of your ratings. You are an extraordinary case. You've also lost the man who was no doubt your ideal Guide. I am sorry for that loss. That has caused you to experience PTSD, and increased the difficulty in handling you for any Guide you should chose to bond with. The Guides you had subsequent to the loss of Sarris, well, they weren't the same as he was. They didn't match you very well. Not even on paper. The last Guide, your wife I understand...." She paused, and Jim felt his frustration grow to nearly the breaking point. He had to grind his teeth down hard not to yell at her to get on with it. At last she looked up and into his eyes.

 

"The evidence shows she wasn't a Guide at all. It was an unhealthy choice, in fact, reading this report it might have been a fatal choice if Dr Sandburg hadn't been working at the infirmary the day you collapsed. His rapport with you was life-saving in my opinion. But I can understand why you reached out to her. I also accept that you love her. Still, I think much of what has happened to your current Guide can be attributed to your ongoing relationship with your former Guide." She was perfectly serious. Jim couldn't deny that. But she was also butting in where she had no business.

 

"My wife." Jim ground out. Daring the doctor to deny it.

 

"Yes, your wife. Sentinel Ellison, by keeping her around you are adding a certain amount of stress to your new relationship. I could almost call it wilfully sabotaging the bonding with Dr Sandburg. It would be best for you to concentrate on solidifying the association with your Guide first, then return to addressing the relationship you have with Ms Plummer, if you care to."

 

"Is that your professional opinion, doctor?" Jim hissed. "I can't abandon her. I don't want to."

 

"No, I am not saying you should, detective. I am trying to remind you though, for any Sentinel, the Guide must come first. Just as for any Guide, his or her Sentinel must be their first priority." Her face was serious, unflinching. "Anything less and the pairing, the bond can not be strong. It in fact runs the risk of being destructive. There will be problems cropping up, one after the other."

 

"Add to that, there will be illnesses. Trauma. Mr Sandburg, your Guide, is very sensitive. He is a gift, Sentinel Ellison. One most Sentinels would sacrifice everything for. You are incredibly lucky to have him. I think you need to rework your priorities. Or give him up. Immediately. The longer this partial bonding goes on, the more difficult recovery will be for him. fortunately he is young and resilient."

 

Jim was on his feet, teeth bared, crowding Dr Rice almost before he realized he had moved. She wasn't as shocked as he'd expected her to be. "You can't take away my Guide." He growled at her, wanting to intimidate her, wanting her to back off, to give him back his Guide. Not make him wait.

 

She gazed up at him, waiting for the rage to fade, to dissipate. She waited until he sat back in his chair. Then her soft voice began again.

 

"Continuing in the manner that you have chosen can only have detrimental effects both for you and for the brilliant young man you are lucky enough to have bonded to. I don't think I've run into anyone during my entire career with more potential, more promise than Dr Sandburg. I am not certain you are aware of how blessed you are having him as your Guide. I'd like for you to think about that. If you continue in this manner, it is quite possible that you will lose him, maybe even literally." She stood. "Now, it's time you saw your Guide."

 

Jim sat, stunned for a few moments. The Specialist was telling the truth. His senses were telling him she wasn't lying or obfuscating. She really thought Blair could die. Because of the way Jim was treating him. Because Jim was splitting his attention to the point he wasn't fully committed to Blair. To his Guide. Jim knew commitment was required. The kind he'd had with Ben. With Incacha, with Jack. Even the kind he'd had with Caro. He'd defended her against every charge, every doubt raised. He hadn't done that for Blair.

 

So, what was he supposed to do? Drop his wife, the woman he loved? Or give up his Guide? The one who had, according to the Specialist, saved his life. Jim lifted his hand, scrubbed at his face, his anger gone that suddenly, that quickly. He was left feeling drained, weak.

 

Blair was his life. The key to his living and functioning. The Sentinel part of Jim Ellison recognized that reality. Without Blair there was no way Jim could work. No way he could have a relationship with Caro. No way he could keep on living. Blair gave up everything for him, because Jim needed him to. Yet, less than twenty minutes ago Jim had been complaining about Blair to Simon as they drove to the hospital. Complaining that Blair was doing this on purpose. Trying to take him away from his wife. From Carolyn.

 

"Christ, Ellison," he thought to himself, "you are an asshole."

 

Jim was willing to hurt Blair, torture him, for the woman who had held him at gunpoint and forced him to have sex. The woman who was never going to give up control of his life. She had pushed a gun up against his skull. She had threatened to kill him. He knew the truth of her words. She would have done it. And yet, he defended her before he defended Blair. He blamed Blair. Not Carolyn.

 

It came together in his mind perfectly. No room for any doubt. What had happened tonight between Carolyn and himself had nothing to do with love. It was control, pure and simple. She didn't love him. She had raped him.

 

He flinched at that realization. He had been raped. Big buff Jim Ellison had been raped. It didn't matter that she'd gotten him erect, that he'd orgasmed. He was still a victim of rape. And he had no idea what to do about it. Blair had picked up on it as it was happening. Blair....oh ghod. Blair....as much a victim of the rape as he had been himself. Only Blair had known what was happening was bad from the beginning.

 

The touch on his shoulder made him startle. His hand was halfway to his gun before he identified the person as not a threat. Dr Rice's face was sympathetic.

 

"Come, detective, I a sure it will help Blair to see you are fine."

 

Jim got to his feet and went to see his Guide. His feet felt leaden. He stumbled along in her wake. Leaving the shattered remnants of his life scattered invisibly behind him.


	20. Chapter 20

H was standing beside the hospital bed where Blair was restlessly sleeping when Jim entered. Jim slid the door shut carefully, not making any sound that might disturb the sedated man in the bed. In spite of his care, Blair shifted letting out an inquiring little moan that broke on Jim's ears like a klaxon. Jim wanted to bull his way to Blair's side, but the towering H's eyes pinned him as soon as he entered.

 

The other Sentinel’s nose twitched. Jim blushed to the roots of his hair, remembering he smelled like a bordello. No chance to wash. But it wasn't as if H hadn't known before. He and Rafe had been with Blair, keeping him under watch, making sure he wasn't alone so Jim could meet up with Carolyn. Now...H had the nerve to be pissed?

 

H seemed, to Jim, reluctant to give up his spot and let Jim in next to Blair, squaring his wide shoulders and hunching forward aggressively. As if he didn't trust Jim with Blair. Jim stared into the dark, accusing eyes of the other Sentinel, seeing the recriminations in them, flushing further when he realized he couldn't protest his innocence at all. Not that he deserved every last one of them, he did deserve most, Jim admitted to himself. But, more important than getting his punishment, his comeuppance, what he deserved for his idiocy, was making sure his Guide was safe.

 

Rafe was there, on the far side of the gurney holding Blair's hand. His handsome face was worried. A worry that only increased when he saw the look the two Sentinels exchanged. Sentinels were insular, they had very close ties between Sentinels who resided within and defended a single territory. The one thing that could come between them, the brotherhood of the Sentinels, was the welfare of a Guide.

 

H was angry with Jim for the harm that had come to Blair. H blamed Jim. Rafe swallowed hard as he watched them stare at each other, both sets of very different eyes glittering. He prayed they wouldn't fight, not here. Not next to Blair. For ghod's sake, couldn't they forget that shit for one night? While Blair needed them to work towards caring for him? Rafe let out an uncharacteristic snort of displeasure. Which was not ignored.

 

H immediately turned towards his furious Guide. Meeting Rafe's blazing brown eyes. His Guide was pissed. H gulped. He lowered his gaze submissively, trying to placate Brian. Jim was at first surprised at H's backing off, until he chanced to look across Blair and meet the narrowed gaze of the other Guide. He deflated a little. He lowered his gaze, just as H had. It didn't pay to piss off a Guide, especially one who was already mad.

 

H finally stepped aside, lifting his gaze to Jim's again. Jim took his place without pausing to ask if he deserved it, if he deserved to be there, next to the pale, moist skinned, frail looking young Guide lying in the bed. His hair was spread out over the starchy, white pillowcase, long, lank curls, freshly washed, and partly dried. Jim felt a momentary surge of jealousy, wanting to demand the identity of the person who dared perform this intimate service for Blair. It should have been him. Then he looked down at the man, looked more closely. Blair was panting, little breaths, as if he were in pain, even under all the drugs Jim's nose told him Blair had been given.

 

Jim was plastered up against the side rail that fast, shouldering H further back out of his way. Leaning over it, face next to Blair's, hands wandering under the blankets over Blair's skin. Stroking his hands over that pinched face. Jim grumbled as he tried to lean closer, encountering the rail digging into his gut.

 

Blair was blanched ivory-white, his eyes moving rapidly under his closed lids as if he were frantically dreaming despite the sedation. Jim backed off a little. He stared down at the young man who was usually so full of energy. Now lying limply in bed.

 

Tentatively Jim reached out and ran a careful finger through his ringletted hair. The damp curl wound itself around his finger; just as Blair wound himself around Jim. Protecting and healing him. As Jim should have done for Blair.

 

Blair's eyelids fluttered, he instinctively turned towards Jim's hand, blindly rooting his face into the hard palm, lips parting. Jim felt his heart squeezed. He bent down low, the bed rail digging into his gut again.

 

Growling irritably, he tipped up the rail-latch and lowered the rail, removing the barrier between himself and Blair. H made a sound, a protest? Jim turned bright, feral eyes his way. The darker Sentinel was looking not at Jim's face but at the marks cut deeply into his wrists. H was a police officer, he recognized the marks for what they were, the result of handcuffs put on too tightly.

 

Jim resisted the urge to cover the accusing marks. Instead, he crept up into the wide bed with his Guide. Fussing as he sought a comfortable position for his Guide to rest against him. Rearranging their limbs to suit. Blair turned in his arms. Nuzzling his face against Jim's chest. He let out a gusty sigh. Jim relaxed at the sound. He tucked Blair's head under his chin, holding the younger man tightly. As tightly as Blair seemed to need.

 

Jim let his eyes drift back up to H's. H's mouth was pursed, his gaze thoughtful. Mad, Jim decided. But thinking. Yeah, the big man was angry as hell, partly Jim thought because of Blair being ill. But some of that anger was directed at something else...something Jim didn't want to put into words yet. He'd long thought that some Sentinels had senses that went beyond the five everyone had to one degree or another.

 

H was one of those Jim thought of having a nose for trouble. Damn close to being psychic. The big, easy-going man just seemed to know when trouble was around, when things weren't what they seemed. Now H was looking down again, at Jim's right wrist. And making deductions Jim wasn't really comfortable with.

 

"Be back in a minute." H said, and abruptly walked out of the room, closing the soundproofed door. Which Jim took to mean H was going to have a talk with Simon about the bruising around Jim's wrists. See if Jim had been cuffed for any legit reason. Like dragging his sorry ass down to the hospital to visit his Guide. It was what Jim would do if he saw the same telltale signs on H's skin.

 

Jim refused to let himself borrow trouble, is would come soon enough. H talking to Simon would start the ball rolling. Jim would be up to his neck in shit. They wouldn't let up on him until he'd explained it all. Being a Sentinel working with other Sentinels who considered him family pretty much reduced his privacy to a distant dream.

 

They would find out what had happened between him and Carolyn. Every painful detail, no matter how much he tried to conceal, it would all come out. Big tough Sentinel Ellison, sexually assaulted by a beautiful woman. The mundane cops would howl behind closed doors. The poor, poor man! Not understanding at all. The Sentinels would be furious; they would all show up at Major Crimes, finding any excuse, no matter how weak to stroll by and touch Jim, to offer physical comfort. And he'd have to take it. Grit his teeth and put up with every caress, every stroke. Because that was what Sentinels did for each other.

 

He also had plenty to deal with already, before he had to deal with Simon and H. This thing, the rape, he forced himself to call it what it was, was serious. Caro had pulled a gun on him. Had been angry enough to do it. Out of control. Yet in control in a frightening way. She had followed through with a plan she'd formulated. None of what happened in their living room had been spontaneous. No way. Each detail had been rehearsed.

 

She'd had her gun with her. She had two sets of handcuffs. She'd had the ringbolt drilled into the fireplace to allow her to cuff and restrain Jim. She'd planned each and every step. And that meant she'd thought about what to do if he resisted. She had thought about killing him, or at least shooting him, wounding him so her plan would succeed. If she'd had to shoot him...would she still have mounted him? Somehow he thought she would have. Forced him to have sex with her if he was still capable of sex. Why?

 

All of the questions were now was reduced to one, what to do about it? Let it go? Forget it, continue on, doing what she wanted him to do? Go to the house tomorrow? Hope she was over it?

 

No. Even if he wanted to, even if he could rationalize that behavior, Simon and H wouldn't let him. By then they would have it at least partly figured out. Enough to keep Jim away from his wife. If he didn't have the cuff marks on his wrists they'd probably be arresting him instead of her. Jim had seen the confusion of Simon's face. Simon had picked up clues at the house that Jim had hoped he wouldn't. With H, and Rafe, too, they'd have it figured out in no time.

 

Jim had a sneaking suspicion that option, letting Caro slide, wasn't going to be possible. Not only for his own safety. Simon was about to get involved unless Jim missed his guess. H was out there right now airing his assessment, and Simon was listening for all he was worth. Jim knew it for an absolute certainty. The next time he saw Simon, his friend, he was going to be answering some very uncomfortable, embarrassing, pointed questions.

 

And Blair was already a part of it. Blair was in danger because Carolyn had no intention of backing off and sharing Jim. Carolyn hated Blair. The names she called him, the contempt in her voice. Jim had been in denial. Had let his feelings for her cloud his judgment. He had pretended this could work out, keeping both his wife and his Guide. Well, he'd seen the light, though it had taken him a hell of a lot longer to do so than his pride wanted to admit.

 

Carolyn was dangerous. Blair was in danger. He was in danger. It didn't matter if he was a man, stronger than his wife. She had a gun, had access to many guns, and she knew how to use them, had no hesitation. She'd crossed over some line when Jim wasn't looking.

 

He'd solved rape cases more than once before. He'd counseled victims in terms of their basic legal rights and safety. Urging them to put distance between themselves and their abusers when the rapist was a boyfriend or husband or an ex. Now he was in the same boat as those women. He hadn't ever had a Vic who was male, but he didn't suppose the basic principles were much different. He'd been in denial. Big surprise there.

 

When a relationship deteriorated to this point the partners needed to separate. Caro needed counseling. So, he grimaced at the admission. He hated the idea. Talking about his feelings. He curled around his Guide. Using his senses to confirm that Blair was going to be OK, was in his own arms. He pressed his nose into all that wild hair. Inhaled blissfully. Very carefully, aware Rafe was still in the room, still watching him like a hawk, Jim extended a sly tongue and surreptitiously licked at Blair's ear.

 

The taste of his Guide filled his mouth. Good. So, good.


	21. Chapter 21

Simon's entrance was virtually silent. If it weren't for the change in air currents, Jim wouldn't have wakened. Wouldn't have been half raised up on his elbow, gun appearing in his hand as if by magic.

 

It was amazing to see the big man move into the room without a ripple, nothing stirring beyond the air itself, no squeak of rubber soles, no chuff of the door sealing shut, no rattle of the curtain being pulled back on it's chains. Just the pad of a predator. With rounded shoulders and a grim, pained mouth. One second the room held two heart-wounded men, the next three.

 

Rafe had gone not long ago, after standing guard over Jim and Blair while his Sentinel talked with their Captain. Rafe had watched them with sympathetic eyes, and Jim was very aware of the other man's empathy. Rafe knew what hadn't been said. He felt it. Jim's conflict, his pain. His indecision. His sense of helplessness. Of all of it being taken out of his hands.

 

This close to any Sentinel, Rafe was good enough that he could feel all the emotional upheaval Jim was going through. It wasn't more than five minutes before Rafe, angry as he was with Jim, reached out and grasped his hand. They held tightly to each other, Jim burying his face in Blair's slowly drying, fluffing curls. He hated the smell of the drugs keeping his Guide sedated for now, but under the unwelcome clinical odor was the familiar, reassuring scent of Blair. Jim focused on that.

 

Finally, when H returned, if only to stick his head inside the treatment room summoning his Guide with a jerk of his head, Rafe released Jim's hand, bent down and kissed Blair, then after a second's hesitation, Jim, his mouth dry, firm against Jim's, then he left. Jim snuggled closer to his Guide.

 

Now the brief, necessary reprieve was over, Jim's body aching for more rest. Simon was coming in and his eyes were filled with thunder.

 

He lay still, his arms around Blair as Simon wordlessly stepped up to them and reached out slowly. He lifted Jim's wrist and looked at it closely. He set the first down, then picked up the second, also examining it closely. His fingertips ran over the grooved flesh, feeling the bruising as it developed. By the morning it would be red and purple and swollen. Simon stroked the damaged flesh.

 

He took several minute to look before finding the bruised rings against the base of Jim's skull, rings that looked suspiciously like the barrel of a gun. He touched them, felt the heat of new bruising. Nodded. His touch too light to make Jim wince.

 

Then Simon licked his lips and looked down at them curled up together. His jaw clenched as he met his detective's gaze. Jim's blue eyes, normally icy, hard, were vulnerable, wounded. He lifted his chin defiantly, as if daring Simon to say anything. Simon shook his head. His long fingers folded over and around Jim's wrist, with the gentleness of a Sentinel's touch. As if he sought to heal them by his touch alone.

 

"Jesus, Jim." He said at last.

 

"Yeah." Was all Jim could manage. His throat felt swollen and raw. His voice changed.

 

Simon nodded, smoothing his free hand over Blair's hair. He shook his head again, full lips pressed into a thin line, his breath coming more ragged than Jim liked since his recent heart attack. It didn't matter to Jim if Simon's doctor gave his approval to return to work. Jim worried, all the Sentinels in the unit did, quietly monitoring their boss' heart rate and blood pressure without saying a word.

 

Abruptly, Simon lowered the rail and sat on the bed. He reached out, and pulled both men into his long armed embrace. His cheek rested on top of Ellison's crew cut.

 

Blair wriggled in the constricting hold. "Simon? Jim? Wha...." His voice was thick and slurred. Simon's big hand cupped the back of his skull, rubbing gently. Jim's rubbed his Guide's back, up and down.

 

"It's OK, Chief," Jim murmured. "Go back to sleep." Right now Simon was all he could deal with. Simon knew. Rafe knew. And H knew. Ellison felt the prickle of tears sting his sinuses.

 

"Doctor is coming in to collect samples. Photographs. You'll have to undress. I want every mark on you for the record." Simon said shortly. Jim went paler. Simon cupped his face. "Do you want me to take Blair out of here?"

 

Slowly Jim shook his head. "No."

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Carolyn Plummer rolled over onto her belly, blinking into the sunrise-limed curtains. Too bright. Damn. She ducked her head. And heard the loud knock that had woken her repeated. She sat up, suddenly not so tired, adrenaline sparking through her veins like a straight shot of caffeine. She squinted at the clock.

 

6AM? Who the hell knocks on doors at 6 in the morning? She looked around. Jim's clothes were gone. The cuffs still dangling from the fireplace. As she saw them, she was moving to take them off the ring bolt.

 

A third knock even louder.

 

"Lt. Plummer?" A voice called out. She wasn't sure if she recognized the voice or not. Was it one of the lab rats she had started working with? Had they been called in for a case? She had left her cell upstairs. She cursed as she moved.

 

"Just a minute!" She yelled, shoving the cuffs under a cushion. Then she tottered to the door, straightening her crumpled skirt.

 

There was more than one person in her doorway. Two uniforms, a man and woman, neither of whom she recognized. She did recognize the man behind them. Captain Simon Banks. Looking as grim as she'd even seen him, the fucker. He face hardened as his eyes met hers.

 

"What the hell are you doing...?" She began, angrily only to have him step forward, his booming voice drowning hers out. He shoved a piece of paper in her face. Too close for her to read it. The hand gripping the paper was shaking. Fear? Rage? Outrage? She sneered at him. The prick. He liked doing this to her. He'd planned it. Waited for a chance.

 

"Carolyn Plummer, you are under arrest for the rape of James Ellison...." Simon growled at her. The male uniform grabbed her free arm, a set of cuffs in his hand, his expression utterly blank. The female's face was a study of many emotions, and very young. Oh, honey, Carolyn thought, you haven't seen anything yet. She jerked against the male's hold, widening her eyes. Letting tears fill her eyes.

 

"Ghod damn you, Simon." She hissed at him, making sure to put a note of hysteria in her tone. "How dare you....Please don't touch me... Not after...Simon, please....don't... you are his friend...he wouldn't want...." The female uniform whirled her around, pushing her face up against the door, damn close to where she'd had Jim's face last night. The cuffs were on her that quickly. Carolyn wasn't sure if her little charade was too subtle. She needed to project some degree of instability. A hard call for a woman always in control.

 

Simon was reading her her rights. She wasn't listening. She was thinking through her anger. She was so angry that she thought she might be having a stroke. They led her towards a squad car, Simon's car parked behind it. She kicked at the burgundy car as hard as she could, regarding the dent left behind with satisfaction. Simon paid her no attention, not even turning to look at the damage to his car. A mobile crime scene van was pulling into the driveway as the door to the squad car closed, sealing her into the back seat.

 

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Detective Sylvia Marsh of the sex crimes unit looked down at her copious, detailed notes. The victim had described the ordeal perfectly. Answered every question frankly, but with a hint of disbelief as if she were in shock. Sylvia believed every word. But, Carolyn Plummer was reputed to be the perpetrator. Detective Marsh shook her head. Impossible. The facts didn't add up.

 

She was well acquainted with the man Lt. Plummer was supposed to have raped. He was big, strong, and ex-military with the finest damn body she'd every seen. Muscle on top of muscle. No way Plummer could have forced him to do anything at all. With his background he could have taken the gun out of her hands ina flash. No. Ellison wasn't the victim here. Carolyn Plummer was. Detective Marsh just had to convince her superiors who the true assailant was.

 

Captain Johnson was in his office when she knocked.

 

"May I speak with you, sir?" She asked tentatively and he waved her in.

 

"What is bothering you?" His dark eyes fixed on her frown.

 

"This case, Plummer...." She began, "I'd like to go over some of it with you. If you have the time. I don't think the partyline is the right one this time, Sir." She was nervous but determined to have her say. It seemed to her, Plummer was being railroaded, no one questioning if their facts were true or even made sense at all.

 

She started slowly. Going over every point. Lookingup for her notes every few minutes to gauge his reaction.

 

James Ellison entered the residence he shared with his wife. He was not expected home, it was dark. Plummer pulled her service weapon and confronted the man who she believed was an intruder. She tried to check his ID and he struck it out of her hand. The wallet was found across the room. The lab confirmed her prints were on it, as if she did take it out of Ellison's pocket.

 

She tried to hold him at gunpoint but he overwhelmed her and proceeded to sexually assault her in their living room. She didn't struggle much, afraid her would hurt her if she did. She was able to get turn the tables on him and get cuffs on him after he finished the assault. It was then she discovered it was her husband. Horrified and not sure what to do, she let him free, willing to believe it was all a joke, a game. She wasn't happy about it, but he was her husband after all.

 

Then hours later Captain Banks came over and took Jim away with him. Captain Banks saw her, but didn't say anything to her, nor did he try to render assistance. She knew then that she couldn't report the rape. That no one would believe her. Not when Banks and Ellison were in it together.

 

On top of that, she was feeling guilty about asking her husband not to bring his new Guide into their home. He had left the house after that discussion, setting up an apartment with the new Guide. Angry, making threats against her for her slight to his Guide. She had had no way of knowing he'd be coming home that night. She would not have refused him sex, but he didn't ask it of her, just held her down and took it. Raped her. He was careful not to leave any marks, he told her no one would ever believe her if she reported the rape.

 

"What did her medical exam show? And signs of forcible rape?" Her captain's voice was deep and calm, unusually even and she looked at him sharply. He was upset. Keeping it under control. She wished her Sentinel was with her today, not out sick.

 

"The doctor couldn't swear to the forcible nature of the intercourse. She did say that there was a large amount of semen present. More than a single ejaculation. In her opinion there was no way to tell if Ms Plummer was raped based on the physical exam. But I believe her, Cap. She is telling the truth." Marsh knew she was a middling Guide. But she was sure the woman was upset. Beyond the tears, beyond the crying jags, she was sure the utter humiliation Carolyn Plummer was projecting was real.

 

He leaned back in his chair. "You think Ellison is making this up? Banks, too? Why would they do that?" She had to tread carefully here.

 

"Two ejaculations? If you were being raped could you manage that? I think Detective Ellison may be the assailant here, not Lt. Plummer. She admitted they were having marital problems, not sleeping together. He seems a pretty macho kind of guy, maybe it insulted his ego to have her say no to him."

 

"Fair enough, that might wash, but that doesn't explain Banks. He didn't have any reason to make this up, or any reason to set her up. Be careful calling him out as a liar." He said. But it wasn't a harsh reprimand. He was thinking about what she'd said. She hastened to put forth more of her conclusions.

 

"They are friends, and both are Sentinels. They would back each other up. Sir." Marsh said, earnestly. "Captain Banks wants to believe Ellison is telling the truth. That he is innocent. Have you had a look at the man?"

 

"I have. Detective Ellison is not a weakling by any standards. But that can all go away when there is a gun involved. A gun is a hell of an equalizer. So. Don't jump to any conclusions, Sylvia. But look into it. Carefully. Thoroughly. I don't want to be wrong here."

 

Sylvia nodded, getting to her feet. "There may be trouble, difficulty getting Ellison in to testify. His Guide is hospitalized." She said, aware that the Sentinels had already begun closing ranks around their wounded brother and his Guide.

 

"There is only one thing to do. I'll have Sullivan go to Ellison in hospital and interview him. Let's see if his story makes sense." Sullivan was himself a Sentinel. Well positioned, and well thought of by the others. Marsh was about to thank her captain, when he smiled at her. "I'll talk to Simon. You are really throwing me to the dogs here, Marsh. Dot every i and cross every t. No slip ups. and be ready to apologize if you are wrong. Sentinels are a sensitive lot."

 

And Sylvia Marsh remembered in that uncomfortable moment that her captain was also a Sentinel.

 

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The woman who entered the interrogation room next was thin, well dressed, immaculate. She set her briefcase on the table top and frowned at the cuffs around her client's wrists. She gestured to the officer in the corner of the room.

 

"I think we can dispense with these, Officer." Then she turned her full attention on to Carolyn Plummer. Her blue eyes raking the other woman from head to toe. "I am your legal counselor. Pamela Oakes of Oakes and Schaeffer. I'll give you my card later. I've read the evidence files available to this point, I've also read the officer's interview, or at least the preliminary report. Now, you tell me what happened in your own words."

 

Carolyn began carefully. Keeping her voice soft, her gaze uncertain, and letting tears fill her eyes every now and again. So, they were tears of complete rage, but the lawyer had no way to know that. Carolyn reached for the tissues the lawyer held out, her hands uncuffed.

 

Then she burst into sobs.


	22. Chapter 22

Jim was telegraphing his distress, but so quietly Blair was the only one picking up on it. They sat, shoulder to shoulder on the edge of the bed in room 437. The pale yellow walls not as cheerful as they seemed before the questioning started.

 

The first round had been Sullivan interviewing Blair and his recall of the event. The detective had not managed to completely hide the chill he got listening to the Guide describe every detail, evry sensation, every emotion. He wanted to reach out and hug his own Guide, a slim dark haired man who was listening with tears filling his eyes. Bill was always sensitive to the emotional undercurrents, and this was too in your face for him not to react. Sandburg was projecting all of the pain, confusion and violation he'd felt while the assault was happening to Ellison. Sullivan thought he might vomit listening to it.

 

Then Sullivan moved on to the Sentinel in question. He wasn't happy about having to do it this way, he wasn't happy that Marsh thought Ellison was guilty and Plummer was innocent. But Marsh was new, she didn't know that Plummer woman. One encounter with Carolyn Plummer had been enough to send Sullivan's testicles migrating upwards, looking for a safe spot. Then she'd focused on Ellison, and he'd felt relieved to be out of her sights. Add to that, he'd met Bill a week later and Beck Sullivan hadn't thought much about Plummer in a long time.

 

Now she was back on his radar. And as his instinct had told him, she was bad news. She had raped, assaulted and threatened to kill Jim Ellison, Sullivan never doubted it for an instant. It was something he had no trouble picturing her setting up, or carrying out. Meticulously planned and executed.

 

Marsh on the other hand was naively ready to be convinced Plummer was the abused party. She was just trying to do her job. Their captain was determined everything would be done exactly by the book, so when Plummer was convicted no one would be able to point at any shortcuts, or call into debate any procedure that had been used or misused. As far as Sullivan was concerned, it wasn't possible for him to have an open mind as far as Plummer's guilt or innocence. She was guilty. But he'd go through procedure to prove it.

 

Blair had been beside himself when it became clear Jim was being questioned in a manner that made it evident that the police, Jim's own fellow cops, were at least wondering if he was the criminal and not the victim. He'd been all for tossing the two officers out on their ears until Jim stopped him with a hand on his arm.

 

"Has to be done this way." Jim said, his voice bland, tired. Blair went quite still, then sat on the bed, nestled up to his Sentinel. His face was pressed to the back of Jim's shoulder, his face hidden for most of the interview. He didn't say another word, just listened to Jim describe the ordeal.

 

The questions had at last run out. And Blair let out a sigh of relief, but Jim didn't move or relax.

 

The reason why became clear. "OK," the Sentinel Detective who had introduced himself as Beckett Sullivan started. "Let's go over it again."

 

Blair felt outrage fill him. That was not going to happen. Jim was only just holding it together, warring with his feelings of horror, humiliation, and embarrassment. Blair was not going to let him be questioned all over again.

 

Blair sat up straighter. "That's enough." He said, his voice ringing with quiet authority. Detective Sullivan, a tall, thickly built man with a blond crew cut startled when Blair moved towards him and closed the notebook computer he had open on his lap. The screen went dark as it clicked shut.

 

"We need to go over the details another few times to be sure...." Sullivan began, keeping his tone reasonable. He didn't like doing it anymore than Jim, but it had to be done.

 

"No," Blair asserted, "you don't. You have Jim's statement, you are a Sentinel, you know he didn't lie to you. That is enough." He crossed his arms over his chest, putting himself between his Sentinel and his Sentinel's questioner.

 

The Sentinel opened his mouth to protest, but his own Guide's hand came down on his shoulder, unusually hard, fingers digging in enough to make him wince. He looked up automatically at the faint frisson of unease he picked up from Bill. His Guide was looking at Sandburg, Ellison's Guide, like he was the second coming. Puzzled, Sullivan turned back to look at the small, curly haired man again.

 

The big blue eyes were lit with fire, jaw set, hair fuzzed out around his face like some odd kind of chestnut and gold halo. Abruptly Beck Sullivan felt a chill. He also felt waves of protective intent, ominously strong, flowing off the little man. Blair met his eyes, steady and as if daring him to disagree. Those were some powerful eyes. He blinked. Damn.

 

Huh." The big Sentinel said. He nodded. "Right, we've got what we need. Time to go. See you at the station, Ellison." He stepped forward and looked at Blair for permission. Blair fixed him with piercing eyes, assessing him with every bit of the intensity of a Sentinel caring for a wounded Guide, before nodding his acceptance.

 

Beck Sullivan grasped the hand of the man he'd just spent two hours questioning. His other hand moved to Jim's shoulder. He squeezed the thick cap of muscle there, then ran his palm over Ellison's head. Then, having expressed his support, he turned and left, maneuvering his Guide safely in front of himself. That Sandburg was a hell of a Guide. He'd never been stared down by a Guide before. There was no way he was letting Bill get between him and that man.

 

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Pam Oakes handed over the folded sheets of paper to the prosecutor sitting at his desk. "And this is a motion to dismiss charges of rape against my client. I will have one tomorrow to transfer the charges to Mr Ellison, and have him arrested for his assault on his wife, Ms Plummer."

 

Bren Taylor sat back in his chair. He almost laughed at the idea of any judge in his or her right mind issuing an arrest warrant for Ellison. "You've seen all the evidence and you still want to try to push this through?" He was incredulous. He tapped the papers against the top of his desk, not bothering to open and read it. He waved it in the air. "No judge is going to grant this."

 

"I have seen the evidence, and I've listened to my client. She is the victim here. And I think jury will agree with me. " She shrugged, "as for a judge not granting my motion, we'll just see won't we? Especially when we bring up the Sentinel conspiracy to protect Ellison."

 

Bren Taylor's feet slammed to the floor. "Sentinel conspiracy? You don't want to go there, Pam, I am telling you. Public opinion will not let Sentinels be attacked without just cause."

 

"There is ample cause in this case, I assure you. I'll get you a transcript of my interview with the victim, Ms Plummer." Her voice was firm, and he shook his head, she was making a hell of a mistake. He moved on to the rest of his argument.

 

"It's your funeral." He said, sincerity unmistakable. He'd tried to question Sentinel integrity once, very early on in his career. He'd never done it again. "We have irrefutable evidence that Ms Plummer held her husband at gunpoint." Bren leafed through his stack of files and found the photographs. He slid them across the table. The other lawyer sniffed.

 

"She admitted to that, but it was only because she was unable to see who had entered her home. She thought he was an intruder." The livid bruises were captured in the pictures.

 

"Who entered his own home with his own house key to find your client waiting in the living room in the dark with her gun drawn." Bren pushed on. She wasn't getting it, but she would. She had to be smart to have made it through law school and to make it to partner in her father's firm. Old man Oakes was no pushover. Taylor bet he had no idea what his daughter was trying to do in this case.

 

"She tried to identify him by taking out his wallet..." Pamela Oakes stated.

 

"Which she thought to read in the dark? No, counselor, I don't think so. She also handcuffed him to the fireplace. Two sets of cuffs. Holding him at gunpoint to do it."

 

"If it went down that way, why didn't he take her gun away? He has the training. Or are you trying to tell me that a two hundred pound, muscle bound, former black ops soldier is helpless when a significantly less well trained, one hundred thirty pound female officer holds a gun on him?"

 

"He is when he doesn't want to hurt her, when he loves her." Taylor said, somewhat gently.

 

"Yeah, right, run that one by me again. He has her arrested for rape and he loves her?" She scoffed at that line of reasoning.

 

"He wants her to get the help she needs, counseling." No way was he admitting it wasn't Ellison who wanted her prosecuted, rather his Sentinel brothers. That sounded too much like a case of men against women. Not the tone he wanted to set here. But the Sentinels closest to Ellison were livid. Banks, Brown, Connor all had expressed outrage. The other Sentinels had closed ranks. Getting to Ellison was difficult now. He was vetted each time he called or met with the man.

 

"Uh, uh. He. Raped. Her. Now he is trying to shift the blame." Pam Oakes was insisting.

 

Bren tossed out a few more pictures. "Your client hasn't a mark on her. Not one bruise. Mine...he spread out the photos, pointing to them one after the other...."has bruises and lacerations around his wrists from handcuffs with only your client's prints on them. He also has finger marks on the backs of both arms where she held him while she assaulted him. His arms were up over his head during the entire assault, no other way to explain those. Then there are her nail marks on his genitals, on his testicles. The bruises and cuts have shown up nicely, don't you think?" He hated using those intimate pictures but if he could convince her now they'd all be spared a lurid trial.

 

Pam Oakes looked down at the pictures. "So he had someone mark him up...." Obtuse to the last, Taylor thought grimly. He tapped the photos with his index finger.

 

"No. Carolyn Plummer did this to James Ellison. Her nail scrapings have his skin his blood in them, DNA confirms it. Your client needs to go to prison, Pam. She held her husband at gunpoint and raped and tortured him. She needs prison and she needs therapy." He saw the stubborn look in her eyes. "And if all of this doesn't convince a jury, his Guide is set to testify what he felt during the assault on Mr Ellison, his Sentinel."

 

"What? Are you trying to tell me that Mr Ellison's Guide is capable of sensing such a thing? He was no where near the home." Ms Oakes scoffed, and Bren threw another sheaf of papers at her.

 

"Here, read it and weep. Dr Blair Sandburg. Sentinel specialist. Look at his numbers, Pam. He also has a recently documented case of sympathetic reaction to a Sentinel who had a heart attack, who he wasn't even bonded to, miles away at the time. They called an ambulance. The Paramedics have given confimatory statements in support. He is that sensitive. Documented. Undisputed." He sat back. "Face it. You don't have a prayer."

 

Pam Oakes groped behind her for a chair as she read the interview.

 

She'd been so damn sure.


	23. Chapter 23

After the detective left, Blair dusted off his hands and got to work. No one else was going to get inside. Not without having to fight for every inch. Not until he and Jim had bonded again. Not until Jim was steady and strong and able to face them.

 

Blair dragged the heavy bed over against the door, it's wheels turning reluctantly, his weight not great enough to afford him much leverage. But he strained and pushed, determined. Jim watched him for a moment and then when his Guide struggled, not giving up, he helped him move the bed, easy, and clicked the lock on the brakes when the bed thudded against the wall, across the doorway.

 

The door was now well and firmly blocked. The specialized staff wouldn't panic, they had Sentinels working on the floor who would figure out that the occupants were fine. It wasn't that uncommon for Sentinels with Guides to barricade themselves in the rooms from time to time.

 

Blair turned when the door was blocked and stepped up to Jim. He wrapped his arms around the taller man, moving slowly, making sure Jim wasn't surprised by anything he did. Jim let his Guide hold him, unusually passive for several beats, then his arms came up and held Blair back, just as tightly. Blair reveled in the spread of the big hands on his body, so strong, so good on his body. He loved the touch. Loved this, being close.

 

Blair let his head fall forward to rest on Jim's shoulder. Turning his face into the lean, strong column of neck. It felt so right to hold Jim. He was relieved when the Sentinel didn't try to pull back or away, to put space between them. Blair needed this as much as the Sentinel did. Needed the closeness. He'd feared Jim might avoid physical contact after Carolyn's unforgivable assault. But Jim was warm and pliant in his arms, if a bit more passive than Blair was used to. As if the Sentinel was exhausted. And that was likely the case. An emotional as well as physical exhaustion.

 

Very slowly Blair pulled back and moved to the bed. He pulled the covers down, then went to the cabinet and added a pile of new blankets to the heap already there. Fortunately it was not a normal, narrow bed, it was a wide, thick mattress-ed, Sentinel-approved bed made especially for Sentinels with Guides. Guides who would of course sleep with and bond with their recovering partners. Safely within reach.

 

Blair didn't want to push Jim. It was imperative that Jim be the one in control, that Jim feel safe and protected, not like he was being forced or assaulted by Blair in the wake of his recent experience.

 

So Blair was doing what he could. Building a nest. Funny how such a thing could bring comfort. Stressed Sentinels liked nests. They would retreat to a tightly walled, safe place when they felt the need to regroup. A place with one entrance that could be easily defended, with teeth and nails and will. Jim hadn't started to fall into this important behavior on his own, so Blair was starting it for him. Hoping Jim would see what he was doing and respond in a healthy way.

 

Blair's effort was rewarded almost immediately as Jim joined in, going to the cabinet and pulling out more blankets. He went one step further than Blair had, pulling the mattress off the bed frame and shoving it in one corner of the room, then dragging the bedside tables around to the far side, so the bed sheltered the mattress on one flank, and the tables on the other, the walls on the last two sides. A narrow opening was left in the space between the bed and the tables. Then Jim turned out the lights. Darkness falling like a sword.

 

Blair gripped the edge of the bed to orient himself letting his eyes adjust as much as they could to the light less room. Carefully he went down on his hands and knees, holding very still and waited until Jim's hand came to his elbow to lead him to the enclosed nest the Sentinel had completed. The grip tightened, pulling him more urgently. Going under his armpits, dragging him into the makeshift cave.

 

It was warm, soft, dark and quiet. The quiet breath of both men the only sound Blair heard. It was safe. Just what Jim needed. Jim's hands ghosted over him, his face, his body. Blair relaxed and went passive, allowing Jim to remove his clothing piece by piece, in no hurry. Tossed aside, each piece, after Jim chewed on it. A few perfunctory chews.

 

The undressing of his Guide serving as another chance for Jim to examine his Guide with all his senses and regain what ease and comfort he needed to bond to Blair. Jim sniffed his hands, licked them, the fingers, the back, palm, nursing on his right thumb for several minutes. Drawing his Guide's taste into this mouth.

 

Blair's body flared. He fought to stay focused on Jim, what the Sentinel needed. To bond. Bonding was important. Jim had to claim Blair soon to keep his system stable. But Blair had no way to seduce him into it, not when any aggression on his part might remind his Sentinel of the force his wife had used against him. Of course, Jim was heading down the right path now.

 

It would come in it's own time. And it would all have to be Jim's idea. The manner in which it was done. Blair couldn't afford to try and guide him now. Blair lay as Jim positioned him, moving when Jim's hands moved him to a new place. Letting Jim take over from him, complying with gentle obedience. Jim's body dropped over him, heavy, pressing him down hard into the mattress. Covering him head to foot. Concealing him from enemies who weren't there. Instinct. Hide the Guide. The prize. The one thing the others would take from him, would fight him for. The Guide. Jim held him down, still as he reached out with hearing, and sight, assessing the room, the corridors outside. For any threat. For all.

 

Outside, the Sentinels would have alerted the rest of the staff to the nesting behavior inside Sentinel Ellison's room, and the corridor would have been cleared, the rooms around them emptied if they could be. Until Blair and Jim were alone. As far from others as it was possible to make them in the Sentinel Hospital wing. Until Jim felt safe to take his Guide.

 

Jim nuzzled into Blair's neck. The neck again, thought Blair, his hair brushed back from his neck, twisted in a fist, held aside. He let his neck relax, permitting his head to fall back, his chest stretched, arched up by the motion. Jim licked a long, wide line up his throat, from shoulder to ear. His breath was slow, serene as he tasted his Guide. Deep in his chest came the faintest of growls. Content. Possessive. Blair's eyes closed, his muscles going limp, the growl triggering his Guide's instinct. Passive. Still. Don't' move.

 

Jim's hand pressed flat over his chest, over his heart, molding itself to the contours of Blair's pectoral muscle. Pressing down, snug over the beating heart, absorbing each throb into his palm. Jim's face moved along his shoulder, his tongue flicking out to run along Blair's collarbone, collecting the tiny beads of sweat forming. Sniffing, sniffing. Growling. Happy.

 

Bare skin slid over Blair. Hot, taut, wonderful. Riding right up the center of his belly, until he could feel the low hanging softness of Jim's testes imprint there. The long hard, aggressive shaft, like a bar of iron. Good. Blair's breath shuddering in and out. Good Jim was hard. Good. Oh, ghod. His fists clenched into the tumbled nest of blankets. Teeth, Jim was biting him, marking his territory. Growling, rumbling, barely at a level Blair could hear. A subliminal background, singing over his responsive nerves.

 

Jim's body crouched over him. Impossible to stop the sigh. The release of breath that his Sentinel's touch called up in him. And Jim's murmur of acceptance was like the song of angels when Blair dared to lift his legs and wrap them around the strong hips, the incredible thighs on top of him. His feet snugged up behind his Sentinel. Digging in. Holding. One high, to the small of Jim's back, one low to the back of Jim's thigh. Blair would never willingly let this one go. Never. He clung to his Sentinel, letting his need show. Mewling tiny sounds of submission. That brought out more growls, more teeth, more tasting.

 

Sounds, Jim suckling his neck, the hollow of his throat, further down, sliding down within the circle of Blair's legs. Wedging himself against the heat of the spot just behind his balls, hot and wet now, slick, and Jim, knowing what all Sentinels knew rubbed there, just there, and Blair's wetness covered him, smeared him from tip to base. Riding the slippery fluid and the flesh it coated.

 

Jim. Jim. Who was up against him. Whose heated body covered his. Whose penis nudged his opening, over and over, but never slipped in. Where Blair wanted him. Waited hollowed and empty. Pleading, silent. Please. In. Sinking in. Sliding in. Deep. Deep inside. But no, Jim did not. He nudged, he slid over the softened pucker. He passed over. Blair moaned. Jim set teeth to his flesh, drawing up a mouthful of chest, worrying it gently, sucking. Blair's felt his eyes roll up into his head, his nipples grow into tight, diamond points, his pelvis go to liquid heat.

 

Jim. Blair thought the name. His Sentinel. But if he said it aloud...all the love and all the longing would be in it. And he didn't know if Jim could stand to hear it now.

 

Jim. Silent cry in his mind. Tongue feeding off of his skin, his sweat, his blood from teeth abraded skin. Suckling on his flesh. Prodding him intimately, teasing. Absorbed in the fullness of what he was doing, experiencing his Guide with every sense. And Blair lying on his back, overwhelmed.

 

The touch at his bottom was new. Fingers. Jim had never used them on him before. Fingers stroking him, spreading the moisture. One slipping inside, into the furnace of his body. Thumb stroking over the back of his taut balls. Finger delving deep. Two. He took them inside, easily. Relaxed there though the rest of him was on fire, though he panted. Moaned and gave in to the urge to writhe against Jim.

 

Jim who slid a third finger into him. Jim whose sensitive fingers would know every fold of him, memorizing him, imprinting him. The free hand came up to the back of his knee, raising him, pushing until he was doubled. Until Jim's mouth was on the seam of his groin. And the tongue licking alongside his genitals, over crisp pubic hair.

 

Blair thought he would faint when Jim's mouth took him in. Opened wide and swallowed him into wetness. Tasting him. Tongue laving, even within the full mouth, moving, finding room. Letting him drop out of it with a wet smack on his heaving, stuttering belly. Ghod, Jim. Blair moaned, the sound trapped in his chest, caught in the fever that lit his whole body now.

 

Testicles, lapped. Vibrating growl there against undefendable flesh. Blair felt the inhale and exhale of breath along and over his wet skin. He felt the kiss, and shock speared through him like razored wire. There, gentle as down. A kiss.

 

Jim's fingers curved, found his button, his prostate, caressed it with a touch as soft and firm as a ghod. Inevitable, the force behind it. Perfect. Touched him and sent the fire through his limbs. Melting bones and nerves and will with the caress. Blair was hard, leaking, his cock jerking, spilling precum in involuntary puddles. Ready for the tongue that bathed him.

 

The teeth that grazed his tender orbs. Jim's fingers sliding in, pulling out. Never missing, never failing to graze that spot that sparkled through him. Made him a gibbering mess. Made him scream. Made him at last shoot streamers of cum onto his chest, folded as he was, onto his throat, his neck his chin, his cheeks. Wet, wet, wet. Warm.

 

And Jim, fingers sliding out, harder, larger, his erection sliding in. Bigger than the three calloused fingers. Opening him, his orgasm riddled body having no resistance left to offer, welcoming the intrusion, enfolding it.

 

Blair lay underneath all that power, under Jim as he went up, into him, harder, farther, all the way. Stayed, didn't move, just stayed. Jim bending down, limber grace, and licking at the fluid, the ejaculate doting his chest. Licking it up. Another new action. Blair managed to sigh, his heart filling his ears with the echo of thunder. Jim in him, harder, flaring, harder, longer, dilating him to the point of almost pain. Not moving. Not fucking, not claiming.

 

Jim licked his neck, following the trail back, and then back up to Blair’s cheeks, flushed, hot. His mouth gasping, open, breathing, not getting enough air. Jim's tongue lapping around his mouth, his lips...and then, inside.

 

Shock. Blair was unable to move. A second, a beat frozen in time, in disbelief.

 

His mouth knew what to do. And the one sided licking became two sided. Blair licking, his heart frantically beating, kissing the mouth that was on him, that owned his.

 

Jim! He felt it. Shooting into him. Streamers of heat. Sentinel seed filling him. Claiming him. Jim locked to him, not riding him, not moving, no in and out. Just in. Filling him. And the kiss. Fists wound in his hair, body covering his. Between his legs, pressed tightly, deeply inside. Owning him. Unbelievably, kissing him.

 

The kiss he fed on, given with such exquisite gentleness. Behind it, under it the growl, low and unending, of the Sentinel. Warning him.


	24. Chapter 24

The sniffing Sentinels, noses lifted, ears cocked, were the ones who started the exodus. The non-Sentinel staff, long used to picking up non-verbal cues, responded immediately, taking care of moving the other patients, locking access doors, muting alarms, while the Sentinels started setting up their perimeter. A perimeter beyond which no one was permitted. A perimeter that contained the nesting Sentinel and his Guide in a space of greatly reduced stimulus.

 

Simon was just stepping off the elevator, Serena almost bouncing with eagerness beside him, when a big hand planted itself in the center of his chest and pushed him back inside. A gentle push as pushes went, but it still caught him by surprise and he flinched, his lips thinning. The hand of a second Sentinel reached out towards Serena, but stopped before it touched her, withdrawn when the Sentinel sensed what she was. Still Serena retreated behind Simon.

 

Simon's long arms swept around and held her behind himself, safe. Simon scowled his indignation, upset more that Serena had nearly been touched by a stranger, Sentinel or not, than the fact he had been touched, ready to pull his badge, when his own nose caught it. The elusive scent riding the air, so faint... But once noted, impossible to dismiss, or to misread.

 

Nesting. A Sentinel on this hospital floor was nesting. Everyone who wasn't completely necessary was being moved away. Or sent away. The Sentinel orderly nodded, reading Simon's awareness in his expression. Simon stepped further back, keeping Serena behind him, and the elevator doors closed. They rode it all the way to the lobby on the ground floor.

 

"What?" She said. "What was wrong?" Her face showed she had no idea at all of what had been happening, of the situation they'd walked into, unaware.

 

"Did you sense anything?" Simon asked, curious. Johnny had been able to once or twice. On days they had been especially in tune with each other.

 

But Serena shook her head. She looked disappointed. Simon felt his own wave of disappointment engulf him. She felt so good to him...but he knew there were others who had been better for him, more closely matched, both in the past, and...now. He suppressed that thought fiercely, angry at himself for his less than generous thought. He was an ungrateful wretch. She had rescued him from misery, helped him heal, what degree he could. And he indulged himself in wanting something he couldn't have. Someone. He was ashamed of himself.

 

He lay a gentle hand on his Guide's soft, billowing hair.

 

"We can't see them?" She asked. She missed Blair far more than she missed Ellison. But she was no longer as angry with the man. Not after Simon told her what had happened to him. What Carolyn had done to him. Serena had cried. For Ellison, for what he'd gone through. Forgiving Jim for what she had seen as mistreating Blair. A step closer to understanding the enigmatic Sentinel. Appreciating her own, quieter, calmer Sentinel.

 

"No we can't see them, not today." Simon replied. Still patting her hair. "A Sentinel and Guide pair up there were nesting."

 

"Jim and Blair?" She asked as he held the door open for her, heading for his car and the parking lot. She was kind, and a good woman. They had their problems...her passionate love for his son, which Simon had done his best not to think about, the generational differences, and Simon's unspoken desire for Blair. Simon had no inkling if Serena suspected that desire existed. He thought not, she was busy with the baby, with Daryl, with him, and he was busy with work. When they talked it was never about touchy things. More like roommates. Friends. Simon sighed. That was what it would always be. Friends. He and his Guide. Friends.

 

"No way for me to know, who it was. I didn't get close enough to pick up much of their scent." He had no idea if the Sentinel nesting was Jim. But his gut said Blair would have managed it, somehow. To get Jim into that very basic healing frame of behavior. Simon's admiration for the Guide, for Sandburg, only grew with every act the small man took. Ghod. That level of sensitivity...Simon tamped down his wave of guilt, reaching out to lay a hand on his Guide's arm. He had to stop this yearning. He was acting like a maudlin teenager. His mouth quirked in a wry smile. Oh, goody, he was on his way to his second childhood...about four decades too soon in his opinion.

 

Simon had heard Sullivan and Sullivan's Guide when the two returned to the precinct. Bill speaking in hushed tones, the reverence in his voice unmistakable. And he'd been talking about Blair. Figures. Blair was gathering up followers where ever he went. And Simon knew he deserved every one of them.

 

"Nesting." Serena sounded wistful. "We talked about it in class, but we didn't get to see anyone do it. Have you done it? What is it like?"

 

"Yes. Once." Simon admitted. He had, indeed. When he'd been bonded to Johnny.

 

"Oh. Why? Uh, when?" She asked, and the curiosity filled her voice, changing it. Simon looked at her. Then back at the road. What had caused her interest to spike like that?

 

"After Johnny got shot, the first time." Simon said as he pulled out of the lot into traffic. That nesting experience had been one of the best and one of the worst experiences of his life. He dreaded and yet longed for another chance to feel the intensity he'd felt then, the complete awareness, focus....it had all been..so incredibly intense. There had been nothing else in his world, just his Guide. Caring for and claiming his Guide.

 

"How long did it last? They told us it was variable, depending on the Sentinel." Serena was curious. And how could Simon blame her? He bit his lip. He owed it to her, she should be able to learn from him. He was her Sentinel.

 

"Two days. It was after Johnny was on the way to healed. Two weeks after he was shot." He forced himself to tell her. To reveal that much of his memory to her.

 

"Why that time? What made it different?" She kept her voice quiet, warm, her Guide voice, soothing his anxiety, making it easier to speak. She didn't use that voice, the voice Simon loved, that he shivered to hear, she didn't use it often. Maybe she didn't know what it did to him. Or...maybe she did know. Whatever the truth was, Simon kept talking. Reliving the memory.

 

"He was shot in the abdomen. He almost died that time. We couldn't physically bond. All I could do the first week was hold his hand, and sleep at the foot of his bed. About the only thing they'd let me touch was his feet and his legs. I could barely stand to take my mouth off of his feet long enough to eat. Joan freaked the one time she saw me through the glass. Refused to kiss me for months after seeing my mouth on his feet. Said I was filthy. His feet, I washed them more than every day. He wasn't dirty. He wasn't...." Simon swallowed hard. He hated recalling that. He cleared his throat, began again.

 

"He had IV's, monitors, oxygen, arterial lines, drains...all sorts of things that meant, when he or I was sleeping, his upper body was off limits. They let me bathe him in between his bandages. I think that not being able to hold him properly was the reason I nested. I went off the deep end. Most morings I woke up with my face in his groin. Where his scent was strongest." Simon admitted.

 

"What was it like?" No horror in her face, only awe. Fascination. She wanted to know. It didn't gross her out, not like it had his wife. But then, Joan had not been a Guide. And Serena was. Serena understood, intimately, the places Simon's need would drive him to touch her. She accepted it. Joan...well Joan had been ill. And that was just over feet. Simon shuddered. If she'd ever, ever seen the rest...Daryl might not have been born.

 

"The only way I can explain it...it was intense. Weird. I remember all of my senses reaching out, creating a bubble of awareness, and yet, being just about totally focused on him, my Guide. I let the doctors in. I understood on some level they were necessary for his health. But no one else. My wife was frantic. She hadn't seen me, not really, since Johnny was shot. She thought I was going insane, sitting on the end of his bed, sucking his toes. The doctors working all around me. Wouldn't listen to any of the medical explanations. I remember hearing her yelling, demanding to see me." Simon shrugged. "I hardly was aware she and Daryl existed. Johnny was everything. I'm not proud of it..."

 

Serena's hand on his tense arm stopped his babble. "I understand, Simon." And her tone said she did. He felt a lump in his throat. He sniffled discreetly.

 

Serena nodded, her hand still on his arm. "You were close to Johnny." She paused. "Did you love him?"

 

"Love him? Yes. I did. But if you are talking romantic love, it wasn't precisely like that. I had a wife, who I loved. Johnny was...the way I felt about him...it was a deeper feeling, less romantic, less to do with desire, more with need, and a bond between souls. At least that was how I defined it. Two bodies that would have preferred being one." Simon hesitated to tell her he'd never loved anyone like he'd loved Johnny. Johnny...he'd been so much a part of him when he was alive. Simon couldn't really conceive of himself apart from Johnny for a long while after he died.

 

"And Jim? He has nested before?" So, Simon thought, she thinks it is Jim nesting up there. Sounds pretty confident of it. Maybe she did sense something subconsciously?

 

"A lot of Jim's records are public. Not all, but a lot, he was in special forces. That stuff is blacked out. But his service diaries and those of his Guide then, Ben Sarris, are used in many Guide schools. You could read them. I have copies and I am sure Blair has them, too." Simon told her.

 

"I'd like that." She sounded sincere. He was glad.

 

"His first Guide died." Simon stated. "He and Sarris were perfectly matched. It was very hard on Jim. He came very close to killing himself. Letting himself die."

 

"Losing Johnny...did you feel the same about him?"

 

"Close. I think. But from what I read about Jim and Ben...not quite what they had. They had a joining of Guide and Sentinel that is held up as the goal of all bonds. Their numbers were off the charts from the beginning. Sarris wouldn't let any other Guide near Ellison. Ellison was his. Not a common trait for a working bond. Guides are usually more open to sharing, Sarris went berserk when they tried to temporarily re-pair him. Being with Jim was it for him. Not the usual bond, far more restrictive, but it worked for them."

 

"I'd like to read it." Serena said after a long silence. Simon pulled into the police garage. Shutting off the engine.

 

"OK. We'll stop by the infirmary and pick up a copy of the file. As a Guide you can sign it out. Just don't make a big production out of it. Jim is a very private man."

 

"You like him a lot."

 

"He's my best friend, Serena." Simon said earnestly. "He is a good man."

 

She nodded. "Yeah, I get that. And I am starting to get why. But the way he acted. Towards Blair. At the house...."

 

Simon turned in his seat to face his Guide. "Jim is not an easy man to get to know. But once you do know him, you'll see why I admire him and count myself lucky to have him as a friend."

 

He was about to exit the vehicle when she reached out and put her hand on his arm. "You are a good man, too, Simon Banks. I am glad I met you. And I am glad you are my Sentinel."

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Carolyn Plummer was furious. That incompetent bitch-attorney she'd spent a fortune hiring had blown it. Fuck! She knew she should have insisted on the father. But the difference of 600 bucks and hour versus a thousand....the daughter had seemed the way to go. Didn't want the money to run out in mid trial.

 

Now the money didn't matter. She was going to prison. For aggravated assault and rape of a Sentinel by a guide. Funny, the papers hadn't gone through yet, declaring her a non-Guide. So she was being prosecuted as a Guide who raped a Sentinel. The penalty in connection with that was severe.

 

Now there was no reason not to spend every penny she could. But she couldn't risk changing attorneys or firms now. Too much negative publicity was involved. No firm would willingly take her case now.

 

It was Jim's money, his inheritance she was spending. Every dime Caro spent brought him closer to needing to sell the house. And if she couldn't have it, well she wasn't going to let him take it. Enjoy it when she was stuck in jail.....enjoy it with that little freak he called his Guide.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Blair groaned.

 

He ached all over. Every inch of his body...as if he'd been pummeled. Strapped. Tumbled down a hill, not just across a mattress. He shifted beside his sleeping Sentinel. Jim growled inquiringly, brows raising, eyes staying closed but lids flickering, hand automatically lifting and searching until he found Blair...but he was too tired to rouse to full waking unless there was imminent, urgent need.

 

Danger.

 

Which there wasn't. Blair made soothing noises. Comforting Jim back into full slumber, as the very strong arm wound around his torso. He was snugged close up to the front of Jim's body, the larger man wrapping himself around his Guide, thigh working itself aggressively between Blair's. Snuffling his nose into Blair's disheveled hair. Drawing in a loud, contented breath through his nose.

 

Sore, oh yes. Blair was sore. Every muscle complaining. Claimed within an inch of his life. At last that little saying made sense. He grinned. And it was glorious. To be claimed like that. He welcomed every little ache. Every bruise where Jim's fingers had dented his flesh. Every mark that labeled the places Jim's teeth had bitten him. He even loved the soreness between his legs...remembering how much Jim had wanted him, and needed him. Having that powerful body inside of him, over him, around him.

 

Most wonderfully, he celebrated the swollen, tender state of his mouth. His lips. Where Jim's had been against his own. Swollen from being kissed, sucked, nibbled. Jim had kissed him. Over and over, growling at first, until Blair kept himself very passive, very submissive, not eating Jim alive as he'd wanted to, yearned to. Instead Jim took control of the kiss. Jim licked his face, his neck, suckled, and yes, kissed him.

 

Kissed him.

 

Blair smiled and snuggled closer to his warm bodied Sentinel. The warmth in his heart spread through his whole body.

 

Jim had kissed him.


	25. Chapter 25

Serena sat, the file open on her lap. The information it contained was in far more detail than any case study she'd written up in any of her classes, even her final exam.

 

Nor did this case history fall into the neat boxes and groupings she'd learned in school. The life of the Sentinel in this book-thick file shocked her. The impressions left, the hints of what was in the blacked out, missing bits...She wished she might have read the whole thing even thinking it was fiction...she would have been fascinated. And knowing it to be true....

 

The life Sentinel Ellison had led...she could hardly imagine it outside of a fairy tale. War, fighting, ninja like forays from what she could tell. The way he'd bonded to his first Guide. It brought a tear to her eye. The romance was poignant. The love shone in their concisely penned words, more than the narrative lit those passages. She felt it. Maybe imagined it. But she was reading a love story, one that lifted her to great heights of anticipation, of celebration, then dropped so sickeningly into the depths of despair with the death of Benjamin Sarris. Jim had nearly died in mourning.

 

Her own life seemed so tame in comparison. So colorless. Yet she felt she could not even keep up with her own simple life. She had a Sentinel many Guides would envy. They got along well. He cared for her, he was kind and gentle, and he adored her tiny son. There was also Daryl. Her lover. Quickly becoming the love of her life. Already her loyalty warred between the two men. Father and son.

 

Oh, she knew her first loyalty had to be to her Sentinel. And when they were in company, it was. She thought of nothing else when they were in the throes of claiming, then she thought only of Simon. But away from him, with Daryl...she felt love of a different kind. A kind that meant, she thought, she had found her future husband. And Simon, generous to a fault had said nothing to make her feel her choice was wrong. He had been nothing but understanding, curbing his possessiveness, his Sentinel reflexes. Yet, she felt the smallest measure of guilt that wouldn't go away. She sighed.

 

Her problems were so much less, and yet they filled her mind.

 

She set the file aside. Laying her hand over her flat belly. And as if it weren't complicated enough, she feared she was pregnant. No, not feared...she all but knew for sure. Her period was late and it never was. With all that had been going on she'd forgotten to fill her prescription. And now it was too late.

 

She wondered just how she was going to tell Simon she was pregnant again, so soon after Mordecai, too. And she wondered where the money would come from to support the child. Daryl was in school, and Simon already was paying for too much. Including Daryl's college.

 

She couldn't wait too long to share her secret, or her changing scent would give her away.

 

She had not meant for this to happen. But...it was her fault. Blame was hers as much as anyone elses. She hadn't asked for condoms. Or remembered to take her pills after Simon showed her his certificates showing her he was clean. Simon had offered condoms anyway, and she had told him about her pills. She really had meant to take them. But she'd been so busy...

 

She hadn't asked for the same from Daryl, no test results. And he hadn't thought to offer. He was young, she was young. Her body did her decision making. Thinking with her libido...putting off the prescription, thinking that her nursing the baby would be enough to keep her from getting pregnant.... Considering getting an implant.

 

She hadn't been careful. Now she had no idea who the father of her child was. Oh, it wasn't like there were a dozen candidates, she certainly wouldn't qualify for a trip to the Jerry Springer Show...but two men who might be the father was bad enough. Simon or Daryl.

 

She was hoping it was Daryl. Hoping they would have a life and a family together. Yet...how would she know? Did hoping make it so? Unfortunately no.

 

She shook her head. She wished she could talk to Blair. He would know what to do. Help her find the courage to tell them. Help her find a way out of this minefield without hurting anyone. More than had to be. Face it, someone would be hurt. Simon or Daryl. How could she leave either man? Or...how could she face it if one of them left her?

Simon.... Daryl.... Ghod, how did she end up in these messes?

 

But Blair was busy with Jim.

 

Daryl would marry her if it was his. Maybe...maybe even if it wasn't. And how weird was that! Weird in a good way. Serena knew she loved him and he loved her. He would stand by her.

 

Simon was a good Sentinel, and the best man she'd ever met. But...she wasn't in love with him. Guilt tore at her. She was his Guide. She should have put him first. But Daryl....he was so cute and they had so much in common. And the attraction between them was so undeniable. Instantaneous.

 

She should have been more careful.

 

There was no getting around that. And there was no excuse for not telling both Simon and Daryl. It wasn't like she could afford a DNA test...and even that would require both men to donate cells for testing. Hardly something she could ask without them guessing why. She was toast. That was all there was to it.

 

She stroked Mordecai's fat, warm feet. He pursed his lips in sleep. Smacking them as if he was nursing at her breast.

 

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

 

Simon was in shock. He sat in the dark on his bed.

 

How the hell had this happened? She was taking birth control. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He felt the jealousy fight to win free. He felt the hurt building. Uncertainty. Possessiveness. The Guide was his. The child was his. Simon's large fist tightened. The new one. The child was his. No one would take him. Or his Guide. He growled in the dark.

 

He fought the reflexive snarl, the peeling back of lips over sharp teeth. Christ, he was thinking of beating his own son, of pounding him to a pulp, so he could claim Serena and her unborn child.

 

He'd been wondering for days what the difference was. The elusive scent....he'd sniffed around her trying to be discreet. She still smelled of milk and motherhood, but there was something more...something beyond that.

 

Simon was caught trying to make sense of it. Distracted by Jim's recovery, and Blair being around the precinct. Jim having eyes only for Blair...and work. Not for Simon yet. Still in the nesting funk to some degree. More than once pushing Blair into an empty room and closing the door. Or diverting to the loft. No time for Simon's questions.

 

Then H had nudged him, grinning and asked him if he was looking forward to being a "daddy" again at his age. H who had not thought of all the ramifications when he asked. Not thought about Daryl being Serena's lover... Rafe had thought of it. More intuitive, as a Guide should be, Rafe's face wasn't laughing like his Sentinel's. He'd picked up on Simon's total incomprehension. And the surge of nausea that followed.

 

Rafe's hand kept Simon from sitting on the floor right in the middle of the bullpen. He was there in two strides, H reacting to his Guide's motion and putting huge, strong hands under Simon's elbows, keeping him on his feet, swaying.

 

One look into Serena's blushing face, another sniff...how could he have missed it? Simon asked himself. She was biting her lip. Embarrassed it had come out like this. Simon could understand, couldn't he? What she was thinking, did she know who was the father of this child? And how had it happened? He'd heard of pills not working. OK. So that was it. They hadn't worked. They had failed.

 

Rafe got him to a chair and he collapsed into it. Simon grunted as he sat. They would work it out. Obviously the kid was determined to be here. No way around it. Mordecai would have a sibling in less than a year. Fine. The storeroom down stairs could be turned into a nursery. It's connecting door opened into Serena's room.

 

But. Simon couldn't completely defeat the voice that asked him over and over...if the child was his.

 

Finishing the day was hard. Serena and Mordecai left earlier than was planned. It was strange kissing his Guide, softly as if she might break, being so aware of her new state. It was far easier to kiss the baby, Cai. He sniffed them both. Wanting to fix their scents into his brain.

 

Once Serena was gone, Rafe and H were there, again. Coming in from interviewing witnesses downstairs, they made time to seek him out in his office. H pulled the black out curtains shut. Rafe walked directly from the door to Simon.

 

Simon watched him come, finding no words, no questions, no yelling ready to unleash on the interlopers. He was going through the motions, mind numb. His desk was almost clean of papers, his computer screen timed out of the department database. He'd gotten nothing done.

 

Nothing all day. He'd just sat here and pushed paper from drawer to drawer, basket to box. He'd answered his phone, spoken to people, taken notes, a thing he didn't do by habit. But he'd been sharp enough to realize he wasn't going to remember anything he talked about today.

 

So...notes.

 

Rafe all but sat in his lap, hugging him to the wide, solid chest of the smaller man. Smelling of Guide scent. And Simon, numb, put his own arms around H's Guide. Held him tight.


	26. Chapter 26

"Simon?" The comforting greyness enveloping him parted, then floated back, sealing around him. It was like being wrapped in insulating cotton wool. He felt muffled. But in a good way. Yes, he wanted to stay here.

 

Nice voice. He liked the nice voice. Rich and deep, he wanted to listen to it while he drifted.

 

"Simon?" His name. He was Simon. Good. The nice man wanted to talk to him. Keep talking. "Simon."

 

Again. He felt his expression shift. His face relax. Tension easing.

 

"He's smiling." Higher pitch. Familiar. Younger. Male. Blood. Family.

 

Different voice, tense. Worried. He felt a twinge of anxiety. Why? It wouldn't quite come to him. But he wanted to go away again. He thought about it, he really did. Then....

 

"Yes, that is it, Simon. Come back." Yes. That one, he wanted to hear that one. The others....made him worry. Fret. "Come on."

 

Nice voice. He smiled again.

 

"That's it, follow my voice." Anywhere, he thought and he meant it. Follow voice...anywhere.

 

He opened his eyes. Blurry figure leaning over him. Fuzzy hair. Glinting with highlights, swirling, drunkenly. He closed his eyes again. Uhhhh... Blinked. Open.

 

"Hi! Welcome back." Soft, kind, loving voice. Simon stirred. The face turned slightly.

 

"Serena, come over here." Jangle along his nerves. He mumbled, lips thick. Serena...

 

Simon frowned. Nice voice...but not nice words. He was upset. It had to do with Serena.

 

He moved his head, a negating shake. Sounds echoed in his ears, like the loudest surf he'd ever heard. He moaned.

 

Hands reached for him. Touch! He jerked away from the hands. Ow! Ow! Ow! His skin was burning. Peeling back from where he'd been touched, charringly hot.

 

"I can't...he won't let me touch him." The second voice, panicking. Not happy, not nice voice. It hurt his ears, like feedback, echoing in greater and greater waves.

 

"Shhh. His senses are hyperactive right now. That is all." Nice. Quiet. Calm.

 

The good voice. Simon turned towards it. Reaching out unerringly finding what didn't hurt.

 

"Oh." Wonderful sound, wonderful feel. His hand made contact. "That's fine. Serena, go stand over there. For now."

 

Simon could smell worry, anxiety, tears. He could feel new hands. Light touch. No pain, no burning...the burning faded away.

 

"Can you see?" The rich voice asked. Guide, his brain supplied. He reached out.

 

Found the Guide. Wide shoulders, long hair, smelled good. Simon dragged the Guide over the side rail and to his own chest. Guide. Against him. Good.

 

"No. Jim. No. It's all right." The rich voice. Firm, comforting even speaking in another direction. He liked that voice.

 

Simon heard growling. But the Guide was calm. No danger. He arranged the Guide on top of his body. He stroked him. Long strokes, as long as he could reach. He heard a snort, a woman's voice.

 

"Oh for..." Familiar. Annoyed. Female. Shhhushing noises followed. No more words from that one. No. More. A door opening, closing. Gone?

 

The mattress on the other side of him dipped. He was ready to startle, but the Guide patted him, held his face.

 

"OK. Fine. Yes. Just lay down. I am right here, Jim. Right here, Sentinel. I'm right here." The rich voice, the one he liked.Murmuring. Low. A new warmth against his side.

 

He considered the new presence. Sniffed at it. Familiar. Safe. He didn't snarl, but his lips rippled a bit.

 

"Shh. Shh. It's fine. Damn it." The voice was fractionally louder. "Get them out."

 

Simon heard steps, protests, sounds more than words, his focus skipping.

 

"Only Sentinels and Guides in here." The nice voice, the desired voice was firm. "Not in front of them...."

 

What? Simon wondered as he slowly peeled the clothing off of the Guide. He ran his hands over the exposed flesh as it was revealed. Hairy and smooth. Warm. Silky. Hair...curls. He buried his nose in the curls.

 

Smell. He inhaled. Smell. He wanted to breathe with his nose here forever. He closed his eyes, shutting out the blurred, indistinct shadows and lines.

 

Ever so gently he put his teeth to the bared collarbone and bit down. Worrying the flesh, the skin and bone. Gentle, gentle. Not breaking into the skin. He licked at the hot spot his teeth had left. The Guide gasped.

 

"Sss...Simon...uh..." The voice. He liked it, throaty like this. Jumbled words and tones. Growling next to his ear. He liked the pointy hard nipples against his chest.

 

"No. Jim. No." The Guide pressed up against him, but off to the side now. Where the other heat was. Simon shifted, pursued. Heard a grunt.

 

"Sere...Ghod!" The voice was tighter, more intense. Simon liked the sound. He purred. "Ghod! Rafe! Help me!"

 

Scrambling footfalls. The bed creaking. Just as Simon discovered he couldn't enter the Guide, because the Guide was filled.

 

Outraged flamed in him. He roared. His hands squeezed, hard and tight, then clawed out....feeling more clothing over warm flesh...He was ready to tear at it.

 

But...

 

"Simon." Another voice. Sweet on his ears. Not the best voice, but almost. Guide, he thought. And he turned to it, then back, indecision warring in his primitive, Sentinel mind.

 

He felt the curly head fall onto his shoulder, breath sobbing across his skin. Good smell, good skin...Simon inhaled the scent. Licked the sweat dappled flesh.

 

A hand insinuated itself between the skin he lapped and his tongue. Also good. Guide. He bit the hand. Tasted it.

 

Buttons and zippers in the background. Then more bare skin. He growled in approval. Wetness. And he was inside.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Waking the second time was easier. Between one breath and the next, from sleeping to awake, laying on his side, facing the curtained window of his room.

 

Hospital, he figured out pretty darn quickly, wrinkling his nose. Even the Sentinel Wing smelled like a hospital. Like the odor was impregnated into the walls when it was built.

 

Impregnated. He really wished he hadn't thought of that so soon. He wished he could forget it now. Not think about it for a day.

 

He remembered it all now. Every last bit of it.

Serena was pregnant.

 

H had teased him about it at the station, never dreaming he didn't know, never dreaming Simon wouldn't be proud. Then horrified to realize Simon hadn't known, had, along with his Guide, H comforted him.

 

Then Simon had gone home. Mind in a whirl, mind in turmoil. A very bad day.

 

He'd tried to talk to her, once he got home. She was waiting for him. Mordecai in his car seat, Simon wishing he didn't have to find a way to talk, wishing he could just hold the baby and forget.

 

She tried to talk to him. It might have worked out but half an hour into their fumbling attempts to communicate, tires had squealed up outside, pulling up to the curb and a frantic Daryl had burst into the house. His mother, Simon's ex-wife in tow. Back up, Simon supposed. A very bad idea. Joan.

 

The yelling had started then. Louder and louder, shrill. Accusations. It was his fault, Simon's, that their son was facing this horrible situation. Joan was not one to mince words. Simon had brought that girl into their lives. Had let Daryl meet her.

 

Serena, meeting Joan for the first time was initially speechless. Until Joan demanded she get an abortion and then get out of her son's life.

 

Then the living room exploded.

 

Simon remembered noise, punches landing as he tried to get in between the combatants. Fingernails. Mordecai screaming from his car seat next to the couch. Joan stumbling, Daryl, grabbing and shouting, stunned at the violence of his mother trying to protect her child. Joan had always been protective of their only child.

 

Serena yelling at the top of her lungs. Someone fell over Mordecai's seat. It all froze in Simon's mind when the baby screamed, terrified.

 

Simon managed to grab the handle and lift the seat and it's precious contents up off the floor and to safety. Before Joan slapped him across the face. He reeled back. Tucking his elbows in, bending over the baby, covering him as best he could.

 

He set the car seat on the table, well away from the edge...the sounds and the blows fading...fading...as he slipped into a zone.

 

"Simon?" He heard Serena call out, her Guide instincts finally kicking in. "Simon?" Her hands were on him as she followed him to the carpeted floor.

 

Too many floors in my life he thought, inanely.

 

"Serena?" Daryl sounded frightened, and jealous underneath that. "Dad?" Frightened that time. "What is it? What is happening?"

 

"He is zoning." Serena, sounding anxious and puzzled. "He is your father. Haven't you seen him zone before?"

 

"Johnny said dad didn't zone. He never zones. Dad doesn't zone." Daryl said, sounding more scared than before, closer. "Dad?!" My son, thought Simon.

 

"Oh, for the love of..." Joan, her voice hard, cold and impatient, numbers being pushed on a cell phone.... "I'm calling an ambulance. He's having another heart attack. Not that zone nonsense. Sentinel crap. I've had it Simon. Don't think you are going to get out of talking....hello?"

 

"Simon." Serena's voice, even more distant. Simon couldn't move. Everything was going away...someone patting his face. "Simon...I'm calling Blair!"

 

And the last thing he heard, his ex-wife asking in a querulous tone, "Who the hell is Blair?"


	27. Chapter 27

Daryl was getting married. Simon, aside from feeling grateful his son or grandson, whichever Serena was carrying, would remain close to the family, felt oddly distant from the events. He had to look at if from the angle of his son marrying. He could not view it as Serena, his former Guide, who should have been his first, getting married.

 

Of all of it, he missed Mordecai the most. That was the one thought that came to him over and over. He wanted to know the boy was OK. He wanted to know. But he couldn't find the energy to ask. It was Blair who finally told him, without his asking. Blair, who had seen Serena and her baby. The same little tyke that had slept so peacefully on his chest...was now Daryl's to take care of.

 

By the time he was released from the hospital, Serena's things were gone from the house. Her scent lingered, but something in Simon filtered it out of his awareness. He washed her out of his internal catalog of scents. She wasn't his Guide anymore. His being, his soul recognized that and so did every cell of him that carried his Sentinel genes. The same genes that had latched onto her, claimed her as his own, now eliminated her from sense memory. The Sentinel that he was rejected her.

 

Daryl hadn't asked for it, but as soon as the front door closed behind them, Simon sat down and doubled the monthly allowance check he usually sent. The half shy, half embarrassed relief on his son's face told him all he needed to know. Serena was staying with him. And money was very tight for them. Daryl hugged him. A rare thing for a young man in his twenties to do, hug his old man. But Daryl held onto him for several minutes. And Simon knew he'd scared his son. Scared him badly.

 

Daryl had never seen the down side of being a Sentinel. Johnny saw to that. Simon was so well adjusted the problems that might arise, never did, and so Daryl had somehow gotten the impression that being a Sentinel was a cake walk. Simon, if he was being fair, had to admit Joan had learned the same things. She had no idea how lucky Simon had been. She and Daryl had both been out of his daily life by the time Johnny died. They hadn't seen his breakdown. Simon shook his head at that. Perhaps things would have been different if they had seen him in trouble. If they had known what being a Sentinel was like for many who weren't lucky enough to have a match like his Guide.

 

Well, Daryl's eyes had been pried wide open now. And Joan...she wasn't a stupid woman. She'd figure it out. Simon knew her, her curiosity wouldn't let her forget or dismiss the events of the last few days. And then she'd be horrified. She would see the ramifications of everything they'd fought about over the years in regard to Johnny. In regard to Sentinels and Guides. Their relationships would change. Just how they would change would be seen.

 

Daryl would stay in school if it was the last thing Simon did, he'd make that possible. No dropping out to work long hours at some menial job for the rest of his life, unable to put his own child through college when the time came. Simon surrendered that. The child would be raised as Daryl's no matter who the father turned out to be. Simon knew he couldn't be the father, not in the way the little one needed. Not the way he'd rejected Serena. Seeing her day to day, raising a child with her...it wouldn't work. Unless he had to make it work, unless Daryl couldn't...

 

No one mentioned the upcoming marriage to Simon directly. Simon wasn't the least interested in details. He never asked.

 

Blair and Rafe had taken to spending extra time with him, putting hands on him whenever he didn't growl and send them packing off to their permanent Sentinels. He maintained a fairly independent existence. He never said anything about the nights he tossed and turned. Very aware of how alone he was. He never mentioned it, but more than once Rafe and H, or Jim and Blair would show up uninvited.

 

Those days or nights always turned out the same. Simon cuddling someone elses Guide. Drawing what strength he could from them, strength that let him go on. Function day to day. Keep the Major Crimes Sentinel Division running at peak efficiency. He'd claimed Rafe more than once. H nearby, watching. Relaxed for a Sentinel who was sharing his Guide. But the relationship between Rafe and H was so steady, so stable it could not be shaken by Simon's occasional need.

 

Once Simon had tried to bond casually with the new Guide working the infirmary. Not a disaster, but not as good as Rafe. Simon didn't try with the new Guide again. It was nice knowing she was available in an emergency, but it couldn't be more than that. He managed with the few times H was OK letting him have Rafe in his arms. Jim couldn't be so generous. Blair could touch, kiss and cuddle, but Simon was not permitted more. Simon understood why. Boy did he.

 

He was numb. He spent a small amount of time worrying about what he'd done to mess this up. He never found an answer that satisfied him. So he did his best not to think of it. But it certainly gave him insight into Ellison's life and troubles. That man had his sympathies. Jim and he were closer than ever. They didn't talk out loud. But they knew inside what the other was feeling, going through. Jim leaned on him and he leaned on Jim. Literally and figuratively.

 

And currently his envy in life, a muted envy being all he was capable of, was anyone who wasn't unhappy. Though even that emotion was strangely filtered to a watery neutrality. Simon just couldn't feel that much. He wondered, absently, how long that would last. If one day he would wake and all the pain he hadn't been feeling would suddenly rush down on him. Engulfing him in grief. Because he knew better than to hope he'd just be able to let it go. He wasn't that lucky. Nor so gifted a martyr.

 

There was a knock on his office door. He grunted permission to enter. Looking up took too much effort. He sighed. Forcing himself to lift his head. To meet the bright eyes of the woman standing there. A Sentinel. Who had also been kind to him in his need. Though he and her Guide weren't exactly compatible, she had made sure he wasn't starved for touch when she was around.

 

It was Megan. Her face looked strange. Very strange. He lifted his head higher. His mind struggling into focus on something besides work, schedules and papers.

 

She stood there. Eyes wary. Lips compressed. Brows lowered a bit. Not angry. Unsettled, maybe.

 

Simon felt a frisson of unease. He hoped it wasn't another disaster. He wasn't ready for one of those.

 

"Yes, Connor? May I help you?" His voice was strong, certain, much different from the way he felt inside. A good front. One that utterly fooled the mundane brass when they'd come sniffing around. The Sentinel Chief had gone all shades of pale. Grabbing Simon's arm at the first private opportunity, and asking him point blank if he was alright. But so low that no one not a Sentinel would have hope to hear. Simon didn't remember what he'd said in response. But whatever it was he still had his job when the contingent had left, so it had to have been the right thing.

 

"Not me. But there's this guy.... Says he's here to see you." She jerked a finger over her shoulder, and Simon's eyes drifted that way. She looked spooked, Simon decided as he looked away from her. As if she'd seen a ghost. Not impossible for a Sentinel. Though she wasn't the one he'd have expected it from. Jim had seen them more than once. An event that creeped the hell out of Simon. He did not want to start seeing them himself.

 

A young man, maybe thirty, thirty five, was in the bullpen. Not a kid, but not fifty like Simon, either. Medium height. Dark hair, trimmed tidily short, high and tight was the term. A military cut not unlike the one he remembered Jim had had not that long ago. Standing next to Ilya, talking to Connor's Guide.

 

Simon frowned. There was something familiar about the set of the shoulders, the stance. Upright, alert, ready to respond. Surrounded by awareness not unlike a Sentinels, but the man wasn't a Sentinel. Simon would bet on it. He knew it in his bones. The way he held his head, moved his hands, Simon fixed on the movements, it was as if he'd seen them before. Seen the man before. Pale brown skin. The man turned a bit, laughing, white teeth flashing. The dimples....Simon froze for a split second.

 

Then he was up, out of his chair, Megan leaping out of his way as he barreled through the door. He literally flew out of his office, stopping in front of the man. Who looked up at him, a little startled by his speed, brown eyes wide. As Simon stared at him.

 

"Johnny?" Simon said, he didn't ask, not really. It was a combination of question and statement. Simon might be seeing a ghost after all. If so, it wasn't so bad. The man standing in front of him was the spitting image of Johnny Sanderson, his Guide. His former Guide. Down to the light-hearted, very masculine laugh that hinted at a wicked sense of humor. So very close to Johnny...and yet...not.

 

The man nodded. "They named me after him. My uncle. Family called me Junior most of my life." Johnny Jr held out his hand. "Glad to meet you. I'd have been here sooner, wanted to come when Johnny died, but I was in the middle of my four year commitment, had a tour in Europe. Uncle Sam wouldn't let me go for the time." He grinned, a tinge of sadness in his expressive eyes. "How ya doing?"

 

Simon seized the proffered hand. He had spoken to Junior on the phone more than once. Been aware of the similar voices. He'd seen pictures, but he'd never seen him in person. Never known how much like his uncle he looked, felt, or smelled. They could have been twins a decade or two apart.

 

Simon said the first thing that came to his mind. "You are a Guide." He hadn't known that. How had he not known that? He had no intention of letting the man's hand go. Not until he had to. Was forced to. With a crow bar. It was like...Johnny was standing in front of him. A gift from a benevolent Ghod. The other man didn't try to free himself from Simon's hold. He nodded, his voice dropping into registers that made Simon's skin smooth out into a wash of silken pleasure. All the hidden, deeply buried knots untying themselves one by one.

 

"Yeah. Late bloomer. Hit me when I was thirty. The darnedest thing, right after I got the news about Uncle Johnny. It's one of the reasons I didn't re-up this time. Being a Guide in the service...they expect you to be in Special Forces. I'm too old for that kind of training. Maybe if I was twenty, or even twenty-five I'd consider it. But, heck, not at thirty-three. I'm an old man now, compared to those fire-breathers." His laugh was pure sunlight, no tinge of regret.

 

Simon was mesmerized.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Connor met them in the elevator, dragging them back in and hitting the down button. Jim scowled at her, and pulled Blair up under his arm. As if she had threatened to take his Guide. Funny, how Jim was more worried about female Sentinels taking Blair away than males, Blair thought. Something psychologically intriguing was hanging around in that crew cut brain of his Sentinel's.

 

"Don't go up there yet." Megan breathed. Her face was flushed. Jim could feel her heart beating fast. Not fear. Excitement. She was bursting with news.

 

Jim looked at her suspiciously. Blair looked curious.

 

"Why?" Jim growled out. Not trusting, not yet.

 

"Did you know Johnny Sanderson had a nephew?" She came out with the question in an accusing rush.

 

Jim nodded in the affirmative. He did. He'd answered the phone when the kid called from overseas once. Had felt an odd deja vu when he'd heard a voice he could have sworn was Johnny's coming across the receiver.

 

"He's here." Connor said. "And I'll eat my shoe if he doesn't look exactly like Johnny a few years younger."

 

"Is Simon OK?" Blair asked, feeling a tiny flicker of alarm. Simon had been through enough lately. He didn't need any more stresses.

 

"I'll say he is OK. Guy's a Guide. Simon was all over him. Patting him. Got him into his office in record time. Then practically sat in his lap.

 

"Really?" Blair exclaimed. Jim scowled harder.

 

"Well, not in his lap. But not behind his desk, either. Side by side. You should see them. Holding hands last I looked."

 

Jim slammed a fist against the stop button. The alarm rang out. Then he hit the up button just as hard, cutting off the ringing in mid clang. The elevator shuddered and reversed it's direction. "I think I will. Christ, Megan, Simon just lost Serena. Did you think maybe he shouldn't be alone with a Guide yet? That you should be watching out for him? Maybe?"

 

"Ilya..." She started. But Ellison was out the doors and striding towards the Major Crimes bullpen the instant the doors parted. Blair patted her arm and followed. His look had been understanding. Sympathetic. It helped soothe the abrasive manner of his Sentinel just a little bit.

 

Jim stormed up to Simon's office, eyes fixed on the two men inside. His fist was raised in prelude to pounding on the glass, when Blair's hand closed over his. It stopped him in his tracks. The feel of his Guide's touch.

 

"Jim." Soft, Guide voice. His anxiety fled. He turned towards the short man, who's hair was drawn back in a riotously curly pony tail. His Guide.

 

"Let Simon be."

 

Jim faltered. Staring in at the men sitting in the closed off office. As he watched Simon lifted a hand and ran his fingertips over the other man's lips as he spoke. The man never flinched. Letting the touch move over his face as if he found it perfectly natural. Simon seemed entranced.

 

"See, they'll be fine." Blair whispered into his Sentinel's neck. That was as high as he could reach with Jim straining, aggressively upright like this. "He is a Guide, Sentinel. Let them be."

 

Jim relaxed then, looking down into that face, the face that held everything he wanted. Nothing piecemeal any more. The eyes were the eyes of his Guide, his friend, and finally, at long last, they were the eyes of his lover. The one he loved more than any other.

 

Blair read those thoughts as they filled Jim's eyes, felt them as they rose. His hand lifted, lips parting in wonder. He touched his Sentinel's face, and Jim turned his face into that warm palm.

 

"Jim?" Blair asked, eyes huge, the question less than a breath.

 

Jim leaned down and brushed a kiss over his lips.

 

"Blair." The answer was in that word.


	28. Chapter 28

  
Author's notes: Epilogue  


* * *

Simon stood in front of the mirror adjusting his tie. He let his eyes wander off the stubbornly crooked bit of cloth to the rest of his body. Not a bad look, Banks, he told himself. Not bad at all, especially all gussied up like this. He smoothed his hands down the chest of his jacket.

 

He was the first to admit he looked better than he had in years. It wasn't the new raw silk, black suit perfectly cut to frame his increasingly exercise broadened shoulders. Nor was it the nipped in waist that was also fairly new. Or the simple white shirt under the jacket that showed off his dark skin, skin that glowed with renewed health.

 

It wasn't even the grin he could hardly suppress before it threatened to crack his face wide open. Though that was close. It was the light in his eyes when he looked into them reflected at him in the mirror. The joy. The satisfaction. The fact he was just plain happy.

 

Junior wasn't Johnny. Simon didn't fool himself into thinking he was. He wasn't pretending he had Johnny back. JJ was his own man. Stronger, bigger, tougher than his tough, streetwise uncle had been. Johnny Junior had earned the last of his toughness in Afghanistan and Iraq. A harsher place even than the darkest streets of crime ridden Cascade.

 

Simon Banks was one lucky man. He beamed at his reflection, ripping the bow tie apart for the tenth time and not caring about it at all. Patiently he began retying the ridiculous bit of fabric into some kind of semblance of a bow. Without giving a fig if it turned out OK or not.

 

"Here," The voice was low, sweet and rich as dark honey. "Let me do that for you." JJ, scooted up behind him. "Sit," he ordered his Sentinel, in that same espresso-and-whipped creme tone. Simon shuddered with sensual joy. He felt his nipples peak under his suit. Johnny Jr. stood in front of him, bending down to work on the tie. Simon inhaled blissfully.

 

Flip, flip, flip, tug, wiggle, wiggle, tug. Done. Perfection. Simon leaned his head back and gazed up into the face of his Guide. Johnny Jr returned the look, his eyes warm, bright. Gently he lay his palm over Simon's cheek, sliding it down to cup his chin, and down to rest fingertips over the strong pulse at his carotid. Simon gazed up at him. Johnny gazed down.

 

Joan had screamed. Admittedly Simon had expected it when he sent out the wedding invitations. But the scream this time was muted and actually more excited than outraged. Perhaps she'd learned after the Serena debacle to count her blessings. Or maybe it was that JJ looked so much like Johnny it gave her pause. Or maybe...she was growing mellower in her old age. Simon chuckled at the thought. No, Joan would be a firecracker all her living days.

 

Whatever it was, when Joan had heard, she'd grabbed him and shook him like an especially fierce rat shaking a Great Dane, opening her mouth, letting out a shout, until she'd looked into his eyes. Seen the glow in them. The pure joy, relief and pleasure reawakened. Hope. And she'd snapped her mouth shut. She'd hugged him fiercely as Johnny Jr looked proudly on. Simon, startled, had hugged her back, and in a fit of incandescent happiness, he'd lifted her up off the ground and swung her around in a circle. She'd giggled once she got over her surprise, her demurely shod feet swinging a foot up off the ground. 

 

"Why Simon you old dog, you are still quite the catch." She purred when he finally set her down. Her deep brown eyes slid assessingly over to the younger, but thankfully mature man (no mere child Guide or bride this time) who waited and watched, an unrestricted smile on his chiseled face.

 

"I was too young to understand when your uncle bonded to my husband." Joan said to him. "In fact I didn't catch a clue until this year. But better late than never." She stuck out her hand. He took it his brows slightly raised. They grinned at each other.

 

"Welcome to the family." Joan said to her ex-husband's Guide. "Never thought I'd say it, but I am so glad Simon has found you to be with. I mean, to me all this Sentinel and Guide stuff, well...if you ask me, half of it is twaddle...but I know enough to see he's happy. And I never thought I'd see it again. Not after Johnny...." Joan swallowed hard and cleared her throat. "Yes. Uhm and then that, that..." She made an obvious effort...."My son's wife. Well. You are a breath of fresh air. And I only have one rule for you. Follow it and you are welcome in our family. Break it and I will hunt you down with a wooden spoon and...."

 

Simon put a hand over his ex-wife's mouth. He held her for several long beats, then eased his hand away. She drew in a shaky breath. Her voice was back under control, not verging on a yell any more. She hadn't lost her place. She shook a finger at the Guide listening with all respect.

 

"One simple rule. You take care of Simon, do you hear? No other women, or..." She lowered her voice, "..ghod forbid, other men. No mistresses, no wives, no other Guides or Sentinels, or any of that partner swapping SHIT." Her voice suddenly softened. "And watch out for that Sandburg boy. There is something about him.... Just none of that. None of it. Our Simon doesn't need any of it. Take care of him. He is a good man." She spun back around and threw her arms around Simon.

 

Simon hugged her when she threw her soft, cushiony arms around his neck. He patted her back soothingly. Then he sat her back from himself. JJ stepped up and put his big, competent hands on her trembling shoulders.

 

"I promise. Got no room for anyone but this big man here. He is it for me. He is my Sentinel. I'll take care of him. I swear. Now, go fix your make up. You are about to give Simon away. And you want to look perfect for the cameras when you do." He hugged her gently, the first time he had. She hugged him back. Then pulled away sniffling, dabbing at her nose with a lacy handkerchief.

 

"Hm. Yes, where is my..." She muttered heading for her purse. "A touch up won't go amiss." She disappeared into the bathroom.

 

Simon watched her vanish and turned his gaze on to his Guide. Wordlessly he held out his arms. JJ moved into them and they stood holding each other, eyes drifting shut as they reveling in the closeness. Simon was surrounded buy the smell of his Guide, the heat, the presence of the man. He let out a rumbling purr. This was good. JJ turned his face into Simon's shoulder, snuggled closer.

 

So good.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Blair's face was shining. Jim gazed at him.

 

"Doesn't Simon look happy? He looks so happy." Blair bubbled, watching as Simon, towering over almost everyone in the reception room, made the rounds of congratulations, JJ tucked under his arm.

 

"Happy." Jim agreed, the best he could come up with while watching Blair glow. Yes, Simon looked happy, and better than he had in literally years. JJ was good for him. Uncomplicated, practical, devoted. And flexible. Simon needed that. Needed a Guide who would be that for him. A Guide who could step back and let him take the lead. A Guide who would sacrifice for him. A Guide who would put him first. Simon deserved all that.

 

And Johnny Jr gave it to him without reservation.

 

Jim looked back at Blair. So pleased for Simon and JJ. So into the celebration. Blair...he did all of those things for Jim, too. Blair gave up his own time, his free time to be with Jim at the station, at the loft. He was there for him always. Without fail Blair was there.

 

Blair had seen to the sale of the house, taking a load off of Jim's mind. Carolyn's attempt at depleting his funds had been discovered before too much damage was done. As a Guide who had abused her Sentinel she was not entitled to any of the Sentinel's property. She didn't qualify for a trial. She did have a hearing in front of a Guide and Sentinel Board. They listened to her, to Jim, Jim who had Blair at his side, silent in support. They listened to the evidence. And sat in judgment.

 

Jim was now a free man. He let his eyes wander over the energetic form of his Guide. The wild curls bouncing, the cheeks flushed, the smiling mouth. His suit was a dark blue, lightweight silk, his shirt an ivory, tieless, with pearl buttons, round at the throat. The beautiful mouth. He'd learned that kissing Blair wasn't a thing to be feared or withheld to preserve his masculinity. It was a pleasure to kiss him. To feel those lips under his own. Opening, surrendering to him, not taking anything away, not control, not his sense of himself. No, kissing Blair was a gift. Jim Ellison might not be able to passionately kiss any other man, might not be able to picture it in his mind, but he could kiss his Guide.

 

He liked to kiss his Guide. When Blair looked like this, Jim wanted to kiss him. Again and again. Until the panting gasps filled his ears. Until the slow, growing moans echoed. Until it was all heat and passion and dampness between them. Jim loved all of that. He no longer denied it.

 

He wasn't sure about this other stuff. In fact when Simon had announced his intentions, Jim had stared at him wondering if Simon had somehow had a little stroke or something. One of those silent ones, that just changed how a person acted or thought, no weakness or paralysis. Or, just the beginnings of early senility, maybe. But then, thank ghod before he could open his big mouth, ask him if he was gay, in that tone of voice, he'd really looked.

 

Simon was utterly happy. Simon beamed at the world. He got up smiling, he arrived at the office smiling. Blair was smiling, Rafe was smiling. Ilya was smiling his quiet, shy smile. All the Guides Simon passed by looked up and smiled after him. Jim Ellison wasn't stupid. You did not interfere with something that made so many Guides happy.

 

And, he liked Johnny Junior. Liked him, connected with him. They could talk from one military man to another. They spoke the same language. Understood each other's honor code. The way they lived their lives. The Guide smelled good. Damn good. His scent didn't clash with any other in the bullpen. It blended with Simon's as if the two of them had been made for each other. And in a way, they had been. Simon had lived most of his adult life with the first Johnny. Adapted to him, synchronized with him. His physiology had been in tune with Sanderson's.

 

Then came Johnny two. Simon had pounced on him with no reservations, no hesitation. Johnny Junior spent that first day with Simon at the precinct. Then they'd gone home together, no hotel for Johnny one's nephew. Jim and Blair had shown up at the house the morning of the second day. And Jim's nose told him where the Guide and Sentinel had slept. Upstairs, together, bonded. No time wasted. And the first thing Jim felt was approval.

 

It didn't feel frantic. Or forced. It felt right. Absolutely right. No question.

 

Jim saw Blair dart forward as Simon and JJ neared. He was swallowed up in the laughing embrace of the two newly wedded men. Mr....and... Mr Banks. Jim shook his head to get rid of the thought that said that was just a tiny, smidgen weird. Or silly. It wasn't. It was right. You only had to look at the two of them hugging Blair, all three beaming joyously to know that there was very little in this world more right.

 

Jim moved forward after his Guide. He put a hand on Simon's massive, silk covered shoulder and faster than he could blink was swept up into the affectionate and more, bearlike hug along with the two other men Simon had hold of. Simon growled at him happily. Jim felt an answering grin growing over his own face. He growled back. Blair turned and slid an arm around his waist. The contact sent a thrill all over his body.

 

Maybe Jim couldn't see his way to getting married to another man. Not yet. But there was nothing in him that questioned that Blair was the one he was meant to be with. All of Carolyn's whispered poison had been dealt with, sloughing away under the care of his true Guide. To leave him free and clean for the first time since Ben had died. Finally something had felt as right as Ben. Someone. Blair.

 

Jim pushed his nose into Blair's hair. He drew in the wonderful smell that said Blair to him, said Guide, said home. It feathered through his system. Touching all the places he had need of it. Nerves, muscles, skin, gut. All the way into his deep inhaling lungs. Guide. His Guide. Standing pressed up against him, Simon and JJ holding them in an improvised circle, a shelter of sorts. A shelter of friends and fellow Sentinels and Guides. Safety. Belonging.

 

Jim reached out and touched the newest Guide. He let his fingers wander over that not bad looking face. Not as beautiful as Blair, of course, but Simon had done well for himself. Jim's fingers ran over that countenance. A frisson of sensation sparkling along his fingertips. And JJ went quiet as a mouse. Simon stilled, his arms holding them, but not so tight. Blair eased aside, not losing contact, letting Jim move towards the second Guide. Three faces, expressions expectant. A breath drawn in and held.

 

Blair had always known that Jim was the pivot, the crux of the Sentinels in the Cascade PD. The gifted, admired, once feared. The Sentinel who was at his peak. The one to emulate to follow. Jim had not exactly taken well to the un-offered, informal role he might have had once taking on his Guide in Carolyn. But now....Blair held his breath. Feeling the difference in this approach, knowing something fine teetered in the balance ready to be awakened. If only the Sentinel was ready, too.

 

Jim moved closer, and the room was silent now. Silent with that air of anticipation that is a roar without sound. A feeling not to be missed. Charged with a crackling energy. Everyone was watching, looking this way. Guides first, then Sentinels, then mundane. By now, everyone knew something was happening. Something huge.

 

Jim reached JJ. Reached him and touched him, Blair at his side, his hand at the small of his Sentinel's back. Simon shifted, putting his own hand at the small of his Guide's back. Symbolism. The circle connected, complete. Blair's eyes were huge. Not missing anything. Not the touches, not the movement, not the emotions slowly filling the room.

 

H and Rafe drifted up to the circle. Halting a few steps away. Witnesses.

 

Jim ran his hands over JJ. Started with his head and went down. Missing nothing. Not a scrap or an inch of the man. Thumbs pressing over and across the cheeks, the chin, the throat. Gliding under the tailored jacket, down his waist, noting it all, the rippled power, the softness here and there, the hardness. Mapping, imprinting him. Accepting him. He ended with his hands back up, cupping the Guide's face, looking into his eyes. Deep. They stood frozen. Sharing a look. Jim stroked a hand over the short dark hair, twice four times, slow and indulgent, his hand tasting hair and flesh, as if it were a tongue. And stepped back. A sigh filled the room, breath flowing out.

 

Simon felt a prickle of tears in his eyes as Jim stepped back, face thoughtful, eyes heavy lidded, and they looked on, all around him rapt. All around them wanting to step forward, to touch, but knowing this was not their time. It was for Simon, and his Guide. Whatever it was, it felt like a gift. It felt good. It felt like nothing Simon had felt before.

 

Blair was there to support Jim, when that Sentinel turned, a puzzled face to him. Murmuring low. Comforting words. Jim had done it, he wasn't sure what, but it felt profound. It felt important. And Blair was ready to find out what it was. And what it meant. Because he'd never heard of something that felt quite like it before.

 

It felt like...a Communion. A deep joining. As if all the Sentinel's and Guide's in the room were joined to each other through one Sentinel, through Jim. A binding. But not a claiming. Wider and more generous than that.

 

Jim blinked, slowly rediscovering his equilibrium. Everyone around them was looking at him. He blinked again. Puzzled, warm, a little weirded out. As if coming back from a zone, though different. Not a zone. He looked into his Guide's entranced face. Blair shivered.

 

"Jim, oh wow! That was incredible. Intense." He hugged the man closer to him. "I've never felt anything like it."

 

"Thank you, Jim." Simon said. "Thank you for that. I'm not sure what you did, but...thank you." His arm was around Johnny Junior's shoulders. Holding him snugly.

 

Jim let his gaze wander to JJ's face. Then he was out of ideas, out of thoughts. The Guide was smiling at him, beatific. And Jim, knowing he'd done the thing that was responsible for that look. He couldn't look away, didn't want to. It was good to be here, in this place. With his Guide next to him.

 

Jim Ellison let that good feeling wash over him. This was his family. And he was...well he wasn't sure what he was, he would find out. But they were his family, all of them and that would never change.


End file.
